Seneca Falls Convention

On July 19th and 20th, 1848, 300 people gathered in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls to hold what would later be known as the Seneca Falls Convention, the event that marked the beginning of the modern U.S. movement for women's rights. One of the few notifications for this event was in the Seneca County Courier on July 11—the event was one that was organized quickly and received little publicity. Although the event itself was orchestrated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the combination of her mobilization of numerous social networks via their leaders and a supportive, opportune climate brought everyone together. This was a convention not of national figures, but of local people of varying ages. Out of the convention came the Declaration of Sentiments, a document that received widespread attention partly because the organizers chose to couch their grievances in the same rhetoric that was used in the Declaration of Independence, ensuring it would catch the attention of many Americans. However, also contained in this document was a “subversive” element that reminded readers that when a government destroyed freedom, citizens were under no obligation to offer their allegiance to it.

The first major event that set the stage for the Seneca Falls Convention was the passage of the Married Women's Property Act in April 1848. This act was of great interest to Stanton; before her marriage to

Henry Stanton, she worked in her father's law office, where she met such legal reformers as Ansel Bascom and became involved in the legal debates about the right of married women to own property, as well as the right of women to participate in government. Although the revised statutes of New York State in 1828 left married women's legal status in doubt, there was a shift in the discourse by the mid-1830s, which culminated with the passage of the Married Women's Property Act. The passage of this act provided a supportive climate in Seneca Falls for further action.

Beyond the Married Women's Property Act, the rise of the Free-Soil political party played a role in setting the stage for the Seneca Falls Convention. The Free-Soilers arose out of the debate over allowing slavery in the territories. In Syracuse in September 1847, the radical Barnburner wing of the Democratic Party stormed out of a meeting with the conservative Hunkers wing when the Hunkers refused to support resolutions condemning slavery. In May 1848, the national Democratic Party nominated Lewis Cass, who was an advocate of the doctrine of popular sovereignty, for president. The Barnburners, in response, called a Barnburner state convention on June 22 where they, along with members of the Whigs and the Liberal Party, laid the groundwork for the Free-Soil party, a party that opposed the expansion of slavery in the territories. Many people in Seneca Falls considered slavery to be a moral evil, and there was hope that this new party could do something about it. Some Free-Soilers went a step further and took the idea of equality seriously enough to apply it beyond race to gender and therefore attended the Seneca Falls Convention. Of the 26 families from Seneca Falls who signed the Declaration of Sentiments, 18 of them included a Free-Soil advocate.

...