The Declaration of Sentiments
written in 1848 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony for the Women's Right's Movement
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 absolution.
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 were accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
object, evinces a design 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 ate tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid
world.