Declaration of Sentiments

166 years ago this weekend, women movers and shakers held the First Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY. “A Convention to discuss the SOCIAL, CIVIL, AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF WOMAN, was called by the Women of Seneca County, N.Y., and held at the village of Seneca Falls, in the Wesleyan Chapel, on the 19th and 20th of July, 1848.”

Lucretia Mott, Mary M’Clintock, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were a few of the leaders of the convention and of the women’s movement at the time. During the Convention, the women created the Declaration of Sentiments.

“…We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. 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…’

“…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….’

“…Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, – in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and 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.”

The Declaration was signed by 68 women, and 32 men. And so the equal right’s movement was officially born.

Read more about the Convention, the activists, and what was discussed at NPS.gov