Declaration of Sentiments

One of the most important figures in American history, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, a manifesto of the liberation of women that helped launch the women’s rights movement. In later decades she worked closely with Susan B. Anthony to abolish slavery, advance women’s rights, and win the vote for women and African Americans.

Born to the wealthy landowning Cady family of New York, Stanton was a bright child. She studied Greek, math, and law, and won debate contests at school. As a teen, Stanton became fearful of religious damnation, so her father brought her books by rationalist philosophers that tempered her fears. In 1840, at age 24, she met abolitionist activist and budding lawyer Henry Stanton, and they married. Theirs was a much more egalitarian relationship than was common at the time.

During their honeymoon in Europe, Stanton attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in England, where she found that women delegates were sidelined. There, she met Lucretia Mott, who became a close friend and inspired Stanton to take an interest in women’s rights.

For a time, Henry studied law under Stanton’s father. The Stantons then moved to Boston, where Henry joined a law practice and Stanton met prominent abolitionists like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass.

In 1847 the Stantons moved to Seneca Falls, New York. They raised seven children, one of whom became Harriot Stanton Blatch, a women’s suffrage leader. In the summer of 1848, Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the Seneca Falls Convention. Aided by Mott, Stanton penned the Declaration of Sentiments and presented it to the convention; the proceedings launched the women’s suffrage movement in America.

Stanton’s great intellect—enhanced by knowledge of law and debate and inspired by her deep interest in the emancipation of women and Black Americans—provided her with the background to compose the founding document of the women’s rights movement. In the 1850s she became busy with child-rearing, and the annual national women’s rights conventions developed a tradition of opening by reading a letter to them from Stanton.

In 1851 Stanton met abolitionist and women’s activist Susan B. Anthony; the two grew close, and Anthony took up residence with the Stantons. Stanton wrote many of Anthony’s orations; theirs was an effective partnership. Stanton also spoke, giving talks on temperance, divorce reform, and other issues relevant to women. Stanton and Anthony campaigned to abolish slavery, and they worked for a constitutional amendment to give women the vote.

An issue that divided the women’s movement was whether they should receive the vote at the same time as African Americans. The 15th Amendment enfranchised African Americans; it wasn’t until the 19th Amendment, decades later, that women attained the same right.

Stanton continued to write and speak until shortly before her death in 1902. In later years her controversial theories about the Bible—she didn’t believe in much of it and thought it prejudicial to women—alienated her from others in the women’s movement, so that today Susan B. Anthony is fondly remembered as the leader of the suffrage movement, while Stanton takes second place. Stanton’s contributions to the women’s movement are equally important, however, and Anthony wouldn’t be the towering figure she is today were it not for her close collaboration with Elizabeth Cady Stanton.