She spoke before state and federal legislatures and toured the country on the Lyceum circuit, delivering speeches on women's issues such as motherhood, marriage, and family. The proceeds from her circuit engagements supported her in her old age, usually a time when most women became even more dependent. She said that women like men must be treated as independent individuals unrelated to the incidental relations of life, such as mother, wife, sister, daughter. In life's great crises, Stanton said, women like men, have only themselves to rely upon. She felt that women, too long protected by patriarchal culture, don't own the resources to help themselves.
Independence depends on political, financial, legal, emotional and intellectual freedom.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton rebelled against the conventions that limited her own self realization and independence. Her words and actions encouraged other women to embrace their autonomy and fight for their self sovereign birthright. She was uncompromising in her call for universal individual rights and relentless in her pursuit of female equality.