Seneca Falls Convention Declaration of Sentiments

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The Declaration of Sentiments echoes the language and structure of the Declaration of Independence's preamble. Its opening justifies the actions of those who support women's rights and prepares the reader for the litany of the wrongs perpetrated against womankind. Stanton uses the religious language of the Declaration of Independence when she refers to “nature's God” and points out that the rights women are demanding come not from government but from “nature” as well as the Supreme Being.

Stanton goes on to state, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” This ringing proclamation comes directly from the Declaration of Independence, with only the words “and women” added. Women, like men, are entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and the government was instituted to make sure that all people are guaranteed these rights. Stanton states that people who have been denied their rights have the right to “refuse allegiance” to their government and “insist upon the institution of a new government.” In fact, those who are abused in this way have a responsibility and duty “to throw off such government.” These are the words Thomas Jefferson used to justify the American people's break from Great Britain and formation of a new government. Stanton added, however, language stating that women have suffered patiently under the current government, which has denied them their full rights, and “such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.”

A statement that the “history of mankind is a history of repeated injustices and usurpations on the part of man toward woman” introduces the lengthy portion of the document that lists the wrongs visited upon womankind. The first five focus on women's political rights—or lack thereof. The list begins with the fact that women are denied the vote. Logically, from lacking the vote, women are subject to laws that they had no say in making. The next item argues that women have been denied simple rights possessed by even the “most ignorant and degraded” men, not only native-born but even foreign. This statement was an appeal to the nativist element that was emerging in the late nineteenth century. The next statement again makes mention of the denial of “the elective franchise” in the context of denying women “representation in the halls of the legislation.”

The next set of wrongs deals with marriage and property rights. Stanton observes that the institution of marriage has been particularly destructive to women, given that married women are defined outright as “civilly dead” in the eyes of the law. Because of that, married women have no rights to property, even their own wages. The next clause states that because of the usurpation of these rights, the law has essentially rendered woman “an irresponsible being” who can commit any crime without fear of punishment, as long as it is done “in the presence of her husband.” Stanton further notes that women must obey their husbands unquestioningly and that the law gives him the power “to deprive her of her liberty” and physically and emotionally abuse her without recourse. Divorce is the next topic, and here women are denied the guardianship of their children, no matter what the cause for ending the marriage. Single women are mentioned in the next clause, which points out that if a single woman is a property owner, then she is subject to taxes; thus the government “recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.”

Clauses on employment, education, and religion make up the next set. Stanton states that men have “monopolized nearly all the profitable employments.” Not only that, but in the professions women could enter, they were not equitably paid. At the time the Declaration of Sentiments was written, the only acceptable profession for “respectable” women was teaching—and even that was restricted to educating young children. Stanton believed that women should have access to any profession they wished. The next clause focuses on education, noting that all colleges are “closed against her.” Stanton actually slightly exaggerates in this clause, as Oberlin College did admit women equally with men by 1848, but that was the exception rather than the rule. Organized religion comes under attack next, for it keeps women “in a subordinate position,” barring them from the ministry and generally from any “public participation in the affairs of the church.” Not only are women discriminated against by “the church,” but also in the realm of morals they are subjected to a double standard; as the clause puts it, there is “a different code of morals for men and women.” The penultimate clause makes reference to God and states that man has “usurped” the Lord's “prerogative” by assigning woman a sphere of action “when that belongs to her conscience and to her God.” Finally, the last clause states that man has decreed women should be submissive and dependent, destroying “her confidence in her own powers” and lessening “her self-respect.”

The last paragraph sums up the entire document. Stanton states that in light of the aforementioned grievances, including “the disenfranchisement of one-half the people of this country,” American women “insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.”

Additional Commentary by Marcia B. Dinneen, Bridgewater State College

Delivered at Seneca Falls, New York, on July 20, 1848, the Declaration of Sentiments, a woman's rights manifesto primarily written by Stanton, was revolutionary and echoed the ideology behind America's own Revolution. By changing the language of the Declaration of Independence, the basic document proclaiming America's independence from tyranny, Stanton brought focus to the failure of that document to provide rights for half of America's citizens: women. The Declaration of Sentiments was presented at the first woman's rights convention, attended by more than one hundred women and men. It was followed by a set of eleven resolutions, including the resolution that women secure the right to vote. Signing the document to support the sentiments and resolutions were sixty-eight women and thirty-two men, including the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a former slave.

A week before the convention, a group of woman, including Stanton and Mott, decided it was time to speak for the rights of women. The drafting of an advertisement for the convention, to be held at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, prompted the question of what to say there. Stanton hit on the idea of reconstructing Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence to highlight the position of women. In her preface, she amends Jefferson's “one people” to refer to “one portion of the family of man” needing “to assume … a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied.” Immediately she is pointing out that Jefferson's “one people” did not include women. The second section of Stanton's declaration adds two words (italicized here) to Jefferson's: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” She continues with women meriting the same rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In writing her declaration, Stanton wanted to echo Jefferson's eighteen indictments against the king of England. She remarks, like Jefferson, that “the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation.” Rather than accusing the king, she states that these acts have been caused by “man toward woman,” resulting in “the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.” Her first indictment is “He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.” Stanton, with her familiarity with the law, believed that women's position would change only through their acquiring the vote. Voting would provide the power to make laws needed for political actions. Another indictment is a reference to a woman's position once married: She became bound to her husband, who had control of her and custody of their children. She was also without property rights, “even to the wages she earns.” Although New York State had passed the Married Women's Property Act just months before the convention, the law did not allow a woman to keep the wages she earned, just property inherited. Other states had no such laws. Another indictment is “He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being,” since according to the law a woman's husband was her master and was responsible for her actions. Stanton brings up divorce, which she would campaign over throughout her career. Under existing laws and irrespective of the reasons for separation, guardianship of children was awarded to the husband, “regardless of the happiness of women.”

Another indictment applied to single women, who could own taxable property but had no voice in government, essentially taxation without representation. In employment, wages were not equal between men and women, and many “avenues to wealth” were closed to women. In addition, few women could attend colleges, since almost all admitted men only; Oberlin College, in Ohio, was the exception. Most damaging to women, according to Stanton, was “a different code of morals for men and women,” creating a separate “sphere of action” for women. With this double standard, women were made to be of little account in society.

Following the Declaration of Sentiments were eleven resolutions, framed to redress the indictments. In writing the resolutions, Stanton asked for help from her lawyer husband. When she proposed the ninth resolution—“That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise”—he declined to support it and refused to attend the conference. Mott also thought the resolution would make the convention look “ridiculous,” but she and others signed. Stanton felt that the law played a major role in setting men over women and that by demanding the vote women could work together against their repression and have roles in society beyond those of wife and mother. Concluding her declaration, Stanton calls for further actions, including other woman's rights conventions in different parts of the country, to promote the work of this first convention. Although there was a follow-up convention two weeks later in Rochester, New York, not until 1850 did other states begin to hold such conventions.