Drafted principally by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and adopted at the Seneca Falls Convention on July 19–20, 1848. Modeled on the Declaration of Independence, it launched the organized women’s rights movement in the United States.
Preamble
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied… a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course. 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.”
The Grievances
Echoing the colonists’ charges against the King, the Declaration listed the injustices women faced. Among them:- Women were denied the right to vote.
- Married women had no legal standing: “in the eye of the law, civilly dead.”
- Women were barred from most professions and from higher education.
- Men claimed authority over wages, property, and even children.
“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.”