The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.

Stanton frames history as a continuous, arduous ascent toward equal standing—socially, politically, and legally. The phrasing suggests that inequality is not an accidental deviation but a persistent condition that reform movements must repeatedly confront. By calling the past “one long struggle,” she emphasizes that progress is cumulative and contested rather than inevitable or smooth. The line also functions as an argument for women’s rights (and allied egalitarian causes): if the moral arc of history is defined by expanding equality, then denying women equal citizenship is not tradition to be preserved but an injustice awaiting correction. The quote thus turns historical narrative into a mandate for continued activism.