The Declaration Of Sentiments And Resolutions, By Elizabeth Cady Stanton And Ain 't I A Woman

“The Declarations of Sentiments and Resolutions” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton is an interesting and persuasive essay on women's rights and equality. The essay uses pathos, logos, and ethos to capture the reader's attention and draw them in into this argumentative piece. Each appeal deeply exercises the importance of equality for both men and women. Throughout her essay, Stanton uses pathos, logos, and ethos to draw the reader's attention and persuade them to stand up for women inequality.

During the late 1700’s, the colonies in America were upset and resentful of the British tyranny. In order to make the separation between the two groups official, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Two hundred years later, women were facing the same injustice, only it was from men; and to protest against the unfair treatment, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. Both parties of oppression fought against the same outcome, unjust treatment, yet, each fought against different causes and in different ways.

1. Analyze Stanton 's use of induction and deduction to support her claim and develop the argument. 4-5 paragraphs.

The second argument, on women being too emotional and sentimental to be able to vote objectively, is dismantled because men, even political leaders, express the same emotions that could cloud the judgment of important decisions. Next, with the third argument, Blackwell explains how gender is not connected to the rights given to citizens. With the final argument, on how growing feminist and suffrage groups would destroy the home image and marital relationship, Blackwell presents the following statement, “We believe that woman’s ballot will strengthen the power of the home, and sustain the dignity and sacredness of marriage.” The central idea Blackwell was trying to convey was that women are on the same level as men, mentally and emotionally, as well as the fact that allowing women basic civil rights would not jeopardize the future of the nation, if not improve it. As stated by Blackwell, “Is there any equally good reason why no account should be taken of the opinions of women?” The truth is, there was no adequate answer to why women could not participate in society with the principals written out in the United States’ original, outdated Constitution. These weightless allegations against women’s suffrage proved nothing but the great divide between genders present at the time.

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

The women’s right movement began in 1843 in Seneca Falls, New York, which sparked the revolution of women obtaining equal rights. In 1920, females are finally given a voice, however; African American women weren’t given suffrage until the 1970’s. One woman named Sojourner Truth stood up for all women for women’s rights with her famous speech “Ain’t I a woman?” told at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. Truth argues that all girls’ specifically African American ladies should have the same rights as men since women can do the exact same thing stating she does the same work a man does and maybe even more since she was a slave at one point. The reason why Truth gets her message across is because she has credibility since she uses pathos by stating that 13 of her children are seized from her, ethos since she is a woman who once was a slave, logos by comparing the work an average white man does versus what the average African American woman do ,allusion by bringing Christ into the lecture stating that Christ came from God and a woman and that man has nothing to do with Christ since a woman gave birth to him, and juxtaposition by announcing that a man is contradicting himself on a statement he said. All

The “Declaration of Sentiments” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott stated that all men and women were created equal, therefore they both should have the inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” (Doc 1). Since both women and men were created equal, the idea of suffrage should be of one for all, not subjected to only white, Anglo-Saxon males. These inalienable rights of liberty should pertain to the right to vote. Additionally, it was questioned that since women were able to take care of their families, loving and guiding their children, why were they not allowed the freedom to vote (Doc 6). This poem by Herman Paley discussed the idea of how various women throughout history “gave” the United States their leaders, then they should also have the right to

Ignorant women are not so ignorant after all. Women in the United States fought for over twenty years, from 1895 to 1915, for women’s suffrage. Women never gave up and showed their strength by overcoming any obstacle that tried to stop them from voting. Anna Howard Shaw was a one of the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. On June 21, 1915 Shaw was the voice of the American woman and gave a speech to the men of New York before Election Day in November. In “The Fundamental Principle of a Republic” the rhetorical principles of ethos, anecdote, and hypophora are utilized to persuade the men of New York that women have the right to vote.

In November 1917, Carrie Chapman Catt, leader of National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), gave an address to the United States Congress expressing her belief that woman’s suffrage was inevitable, and requesting that Congress see it as such and vote to pass the amendment. Catt’s speech was based on facts and figures (ethos) from our own country’s history, logic, reasoning, and common sense (logos); it was hard for any man to argue with, which was her goal. Catt had given hundreds of speeches in her life, and in this case, she planned her approach to be factual and unemotional to get through to those that thought of women as

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).

Nonetheless, Stanton managed to target her audiences, by assuming herself as almost a philosopher communicating about life and individual human soul, rather than as a feminist (1). Consider that her audience were males and did not form a positive impression on her before she made the speech, Stanton was able to grab her audiences’ attention by turning away from her usual approach to promote women’s suffrage and raising a question about individual rights (Ginzberg 170). The speech was structured in a way that all individuals could relate to the speech, and benefit from reflecting about the question proposed by the speech.

In June of 1915, the United States is fighting World War One in Europe, while women, including Anna Howard Shaw, continue to fight for suffrage rights at home. As the war rages on, women commit to their suffrage movements by giving speeches and marching in parades. On June 21, Shaw persuasively speaks to the people of New York at an equal suffrage campaign as they prepare to vote on a law concerning women’s suffrage rights. She intends to give evidence to her listeners and persuade them to support the women of New York and eventually all of the women in America, to vote. Shaw uses “The Fundamental Principles of a Republic” to prove the true purpose of the women 's suffrage movement, expose the illogical arguments of her opposition, and to convince all of her listeners (the male voters of New York) to vote for women’s right to vote through logical and rational arguments.

She modeled her Declaration of Sentiments after the Declaration of Independence. The first line of the Declaration of Sentiments and the Declaration of Independence only differed in two words, “and women”. At the convention, the women signed their names on the document. As one of the youngest signers to the Declaration of Sentiments, Charlotte Woodward became the only signer to see her dream come alive at the ballot box. To discourage the women from taking any further actions, newspapers across the country published and ridiculed the Declaration and its signers. Embarrassed by the bad publicity, several women decided to withdraw their name. However, most women were still willing to fight for their cause. The tea party on that hot summer afternoon started an ongoing fight for women’s equality.

(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

in the government of the physical world it is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general, inferior to the male. This is the law of Nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or abrogated in favour of woman. A degree of physical superiority cannot, therefore, be denied, and it is a noble prerogative! (Wollstonecraft, 111).2