LAD #11: Seneca Falls Declaration

Summary- In the 1840's, as the Abolitionist movement gained steam, so did the Women's rights movement. The Seneca Falls Convention was the first great culmination of this movement. Notable leaders, including Elizabteh Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, conferred and resolved to declare their rights formally.
               The result of the conference was the Seneca Falls declaration, a document decarling women to be of equal status and men. The Declaration began in a similar way as the more famous Declaration of Independence. Almost word for word, the Seneca Falls Declaration reads, "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". Just like the Declaration of Independence, the Seneca Falls Declaration goes on to discuss a list of grievances found within the women of the convention. The list states such issues as the failure to enfranchise women, the seizure of women's property by their husbands, the subjugation of women by men, and the lack of education for women among many others. The phrase that sums up this list is as follows, "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"
               The Declaration concludes with the resolutions of the conventions. The convention states confiedently that society must and will change, and that the women of the convention will work tirelessly to ensure this change. Women must become enfranchised, be respected as men in economic matters, and men and women alike must come together to fight this human rights monopolization by man.