How Americans Understand The Equality Of 1840, By Alexis De Toquevilles

The activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in her essay, “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Seneca Falls Convention, 1848” emphasizes the importance of equality between women and men. Stanton’s purpose is to outline the inequality that existed between men and women and make points that will lead to inequalities ending. She adopts a straightforward and factual tone to get her point across without sounding biased or being disrespectful towards anyone who may disagree with her.

In the Declaration of Sentiments, author Elizabeth Cady Stanton expresses her anger of the oppression experienced by women in the United States. After being rejected to attend the World’s Anti-Slavery convention in London, Stanton was frustrated because she was being rejected for being a woman. This motivated Stanton to share her own ideas on advocating women’s rights and changing the way women are treated in society because of the mistreatment done to her, as well as many women across the nation waiting for their voices to be heard. Stanton parallels the Declaration of Sentiments with the Declaration of Independence by using laws that the male population regarded as righteous and including how it had negative effects on over half the American population. This put into question male authority and supremacy, creating a more concrete argument by revealing what men already have under the law, to what women should have. The sophistication of the Declaration of Sentiments to a document that the U.S. government values highly, threatens the values of the U.S. by making women’s rights a more pressing issue. The Declaration of Sentiments targeted the U.S. government and the population by appealing to their own opinions and beliefs in order to recognize that women were being treated like second-class citizens. Although the Declaration of Sentiments never made a significant impact on the

In Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments of the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention”, She makes a statement that ultimately makes

Women feel like they are slaves and owned because they have no freedom. Women submit to laws in the formation of which she has no voice, they have no representation in the halls of legislation. Stanton elaborates further by providing that women have the same rights and privileges as men stating “we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States”(Stanton, 583) and that all people within a society should have the same status in respects of civil rights, freedom of speech, property rights and equal access to all social goods and services by stating, “it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.” (Stanton, 582) When explaining each injustice and oppression against women, Stanton induces the reader to act “because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights.” (Stanton, 583) Stanton is portraying women as innocent, blameless victims, and men as the evil opposition.

The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival started in upstate New York by religious leaders such as Charles Grandison Finney and Joseph Smith. The revival flourished by the early 1800s and caused the development of numerous reform movements between 1825 and 1850. Reform movements such as abolition, women's suffrage, and educational advancements all contributed to the expansion of Democratic ideals during this time period. In American democracy, education for our youth has always been a fundamental part in creating the perfect country.

In a similar manner to the slaves, women were motivated by the beliefs preached in camp meetings and churches during the Second Great Awakening. Due to the amount of free time the women had, they attended these churches more often than men, allowing them to absorb the ideas from the sermons. These women not only became motivated to fight for the rights of slaves, but also for their own since human freedom was one of the essential ideas of the Second Great Awakening. During the international anti-slavery convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were denied the right to participate just because of their genders. With the ideas of the Second Great Awakening in their minds, they created the Women’s Right Convention in Seneca Falls, where they wrote the Declaration of Sentiments that listed all of the ways in which males have wronged them by denying equality to them. It marked the beginning of a long struggle to gain equality between men and women. Among the many things that they wanted to have equality in was divorce, inheritance, property, and children. Therefore, the concept of freedom for all Americans from the Second Great Awakening triggered a movement to give women freedom from the bonds of men by means of equality.

Elizabeth Stanton delivered one of the most historical speeches in U.S history in 1848. Her speech, “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” was a fight for women’s rights. Elizabeth Stanton was a mother, highly accomplished and well educated. She began to relish the fact that women had a lack of advancement opportunities, and were especially constricted compared to men. She gave her speech at the Seneca Falls convention, and caught the attention of many with her compelling speech tactics. Stanton wrote her speech structured after our nations “Declaration of Independence”. She also persuaded others to see the truth behind her arguments by claims of natural rights. Finally Stanton uses a pathos strategy

One of the many movements in the reform is the women's rights movement. Women could not vote, attend schools, or have certain jobs. They were expected to take care of the house, cook, and clean. Two women named Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Stanton impacted this movement in many ways. They had the idea to create a convention after they were told women could not take part in the proceedings . Their convention discussed many things such as, social, civil, and religious rights of women. This was the first gathering aimed toward women. Later Stanton wrote The Declaration of Sentiments. The Declaration of Sentiments talked about full equality for women. This document changed society and women were now allowed to do things they were not allowed to do before.

In the cartoon, it states “20,000,000 American Women Are Not Self-Governed” (Doc 7). This cartoon establishes the idea of women not taking part in the process of developing their own government. This is a necessary part to uphold as the equality of women leads to the right to vote, a key point in basic American rights. Two major women that fronted women's suffrage movement were Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Lucretia Mott initially started this movement with Elizabeth Stanton, in Seneca Falls, NY. In the letter to Elizabeth Stanton from Susan B. Anthony, she asks the question, “If only now--all the women suffrage women would work to this end of enforcing the existing constitution--supremacy of national law over state law over state law” (Doc 2). The idea of women's suffrage is not a simple task, as enforcing this law is a difficult task to continually maintain within both the national and state

The Convention of Seneca Falls was held in central New York. The convention lasted for two full days on the dates of July 19 and 20th in the year 1848. Elizabeth Stanton decided to hold a gathering to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman. Stanton led the convention with the help of friend Lucretia Mott. The articles states that the Convention of Seneca Falls is what helped to open up the idea of equality for both genders saying that it “marked the beginning of the seventy year struggle for women’s suffrage.” Stanton and Mott had first became acquainted in England at the World Anti-Slavery Convention. This was the same conference that refused to accommodate Mott and other representatives due to the fact that they were women. Lucretia Mott was a woman in her mid-forties, she was a Quaker minister, feminist, and abolitionist. Stanton composed a document called the Declaration of Sentiments. The Declaration of Sentiments was a document declaring the given rights of women. This document is what defined the convention. It was slightly based off of the Declaration of Independence. The Convention of Seneca Falls was announced to the citizens by a small, unsigned notice placed in the Seneca County Courier. The first day of the convention was reserved solely for women to discuss and debate on the Declaration of Sentiments document. On the second day of the convention, they opened it for all people to attend. Frederick Douglass gave a powerful speech

Masculinity didn’t do a good job of attaining the hoped-for standards, as they didn’t have other equally profound consequences for American middle-class culture at this time. It justified the exclusion of women from the world as acceptable to both women and men at this time, and it cultivated strong bonds around women as well. They in fact shared the biological experiences central to their definition as women and spoke the same language of virtue and piety, which essentially means that they instilled a awareness of a set of common goals for them and experiences present for them, which had values specific to women, and distinct from those of men. The key to this was the extensive networks of female friends that were present during this time period for these women. Since women were supposedly better than men during this time, it was feasible and easy to believe that women were obliged and privileged to work together and help other women, who were fallen, and poor, who were having some sort of trouble during this time period as a result of the society that they were present in during this time period. Southern white women during this time were aware of the ideology of domesticity during this time, and they would try to implement it and its teachings for their lives, but their expectations were frequently articulated during this time period. There was little industrialization, domestication, urbanization, immigration, and therefore, social dislocation present during

In 1848 a group of women met at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York and began to formulate a demand for the enfranchisement of American women (Women’s Suffrage, 2011). Elizabeth Cady Stanton composed the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, stating that “a man should not withhold a woman's rights, take her property or refuse to allow her to vote” (Kelly, 2011, para.3 ). The convention participants spent two days arguing and refining the content of the Declaration of Sentiments, then voted on its contents; the document received support from about one third of the delegates in attendance. The Seneca Falls Convention was not a resounding success, but it “represented an important first step in the evolving campaign for women’s rights” (Tindall & Shi, 2010, p.374, para.1).

Certainly Alexis’ experience with the Social equality those minorities faced, during his visit, was viewed as incompatible with democracy. Neither of the French visitors agreed with the treatment of slaves or the Native Americans, and Alexis was able to document this in his books. The view Tocqueville had of the Anglo European view towards Natives and Blacks was as “human beings are to animals” (Alexis de Tocqueville 92). In a way Tocqueville predicted what ended up happening, and that Anglo Europeans would control from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the North to the South poles. If you look at the Euro-American imperialistic movement west with Spain, French, British, as well as Anglo Americans, surely Alexis’ vision became a reality.

will do in the 1800’s, managing their home. Even though Stanton liked where she was they moved to Seneca, Falls and met with her old friend Mott. In 1848, they granted their promise and held the first Women’s Rights Convention, in addition to this, the people who attended this meeting believed or wanted to have equal power as men. In the Convention Stanton drafted the Declaration of Sentiments which is similar to the Declaration of Independence, “the best protection any women can

(Goldfield, 338) Since the cult of domesticity was making women inferior to men, women decided to do as the slaves did and fight for their own freedom. The women’s rights movement began in the mid-1800s. Female and male abolitionist found it necessary that women should be able to have the same rights as men. Just because biologically they are different, it does not mean they do not deserve the same rights. Women were denied the right to vote, property and a right to an education or job. (Goldfield, 338) At first the women’s movement was slow. Many women were afraid to speak out in fear of being shunned by their community. This was a brand new scary task that Women for the first time were going to deal with. A women speaking out against the norms of society was seen as a terrible thing to do. When you have many women speaking out for the same thing a change must be done. When the first national convention for women’s rights was called in Seneca Falls, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were able to successfully use the Declaration of Independence as a model for their own Declaration of Sentiments. (Goldfield, 339) In their Declaration they branded that “male patriarchy as the source of women’s oppression” (Goldfield, 339) Stanton and Mott called for full women’s rights and to become independent citizens. Although the fight for women’s rights was always an important issue, most abolitionists deemed it less important