Declaration of Rights and Sentiments :: essays research papers

Many Americans realized their own oppression as they worked to the end of the institution of slavery. When two of these women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, were denied the right to sit as delegates at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, they were angered to the point of action. Eight years later in Seneca Falls, New York, the first American women's right convention was held. Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented the following declaration. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necesary 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, but one to which the laws of nature's God entitle them, a denet 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 treated equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with the certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these right 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 right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the instituiton 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experiences hath shown that mankind are more diisposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolitionist the froms to which they were accustomed .