James and Lucretia Mott
Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848 with two of her three sons

All men and WOMEN are created equal.
• We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal…”
Lucretia Mott (1842)
Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and her daughter Harriot.

Women also have certain unalienable rights by God.
– “…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…”
July 20, 1848: The Seneca Falls Convention calls for equal civil and political rights for women

• Women have the right to refuse allegiance to their government and insist upon the institution of a new government.
• “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

• Men have treated women badly and dominated them.
• “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.”

• Women are equal citizens of these United
States and they should be immediately given the rights they deserve.
• “…because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.”

• Why were so many of their contemporaries, even among the
Abolitionists, deeply disturbed by the
Declaration?
• How could an Abolitionist consistently oppose slavery but favor the continuation of women's inferior status?