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[typed transcript]

Scrapbook, Vol. 1

(Copy of letter from Mrs. Stanton to Secretary Seward.)

New York

Sep 19th

Mr. Seward

	Dear Sir,
	Would it be transcending the limits of our friendship for me to ask as a personal favor that you will place the name of my son Henry B. Stanton Jr, among the many recommended to you as a candidate for West Point. The boy has the essential elements of a hero & as all his proclivities are to the army I desire that he should have a scientific military education, for I feel that our present struggle for liberty is to be a long & hard one & think for years to come we shall need brave, true men to assert the grand idea of American equality & defend it with the sword against the aggressions of brute force. I have endeavored to fire his soul with a holy love for freedom, with your help to place him in a position where to his mind he can best defend the sacred rights of future generations. The age of Bullets has come again, man once more asserts his individuality & a rotten aristocracy must be subdued by the only weapons they can feel. I have an unswerving faith in the endurance of our republic, “the turmoil & confusion that now surround us are but the mire and dust of the wagon bringing the harvest home.”
	This war is music in my ears, - it is a simultaneous chorus, of liberty, for freedom, for every nation that has ever fought for freedom (?) on her own soil is not represented in our grand army.
	I know you are too magnanimous to be influenced in this matter
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(Mrs. Stanton to Secretary Seward -2-)

by any slight personal difference with my Husband, therefore to you as a statesman in confidence I come as one of the mothers of the Republic asking that her son may be placed in the best possible position to defend those institutions I know you so truly venerate & love.
	Yours with sincere affection
		Elizabeth Cady Stanton.