Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments, 1848

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, An excerpt from the Declaration of Sentiments, Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls and Rochester, N.Y., July and August 1848
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's speech is read by Mona Seghatoleslami:
"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, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, 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; 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled. 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.
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 the United States."
Source
sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsa...
1. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Declaration of Sentiments
Woman’s Rights Conventions
Seneca Falls and Rochester, NY
July and August 1848
Read by Mona Seghatoleslami, April 2017
Text credit:
Paul Halsall, “Fordham University Modern History Sourcebook: The Declaration of Sentiments,
Seneca Falls Conference, 1848,” (excerpt), Sourcebooks.Fordham.edu,
sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsa....
Image credit:
Fight for Equals, “The History of Women Rights,” FightForEquals.weebly.com,
fightforequals.weebly.com/hist....

[@katherineruiz6014]

Thank you for your video! I seem to understand these documents much better when I listen to them vs when I read them.

[@faithlassiter7043]

She’s my aunt