Declaration of Sentiments, 1848
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Lucretia Mott
Seneca Falls Convention
Social Snapshot
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Women, as members of mixed-sex societies, fought
against injustices of:
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The need for free public education for all children
The abuse and neglect of criminals and mental patients
Slavery
The evils of drink (for Prohibition)
Women’s legal position
Since the Revolutionary period, population and
geographic boundaries of the United States had doubled
and shifted westward.
Economy was shifting away from farming towards
manufactured goods, banks and cash crops.
Changes left some feeling isolated, or without a sense of
community.
Audience
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“a candid world”
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Other women
– The Seneca Falls Convention served as a pep rally for women’s
rights activists.
– Encourages women not in the movement to join, or just think
about their positions.
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Men (Politicians, husbands, fathers, brothers, bosses,
clergy, etc.)
Main Points
Women declared their independence and
inalienable Rights: Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.
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“We insist that [women] have immediate admission to
the rights and privileges which belong to them as
citizens of the United States.”
“…Such has been the patient sufferance of the women
under this government, and such is now the necessity
which constrains them to demand the equal station to
which they are entitled.”
Main Points
Men have created a social and political tyranny
over women by not recognizing their civil
liberties.
“He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy
her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect,
and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.”
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“He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.”
“He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.”
“He has withheld from her rights which are given the most ignorant and degraded menboth natives and foreigners.”
“He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.”
“He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.”
“In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband,
he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master.”
…if single, and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which
recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.”
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Social Impact
After the convention, some parties
removed their names due to societal
pressures.
 The Convention was said to have mocked,
not utilized, the Declaration of
Independence.
 This stand put the women’s movement
back a few steps. Feminism today has a
negative connotation.
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Questions to consider
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How could an Abolitionist consistently oppose slavery but favor
the continuation of women’s inferior status?
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Why were so many of their contemporaries, even among the
Abolitionists, deeply disturbed by the Declaration?
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What contemporary groups, if any, could utilize Jefferson’s
language in the Declaration of Independence for their own
purposes?