mpetus at this period from the vast number of women who were
engaged in the anti-slavery agitation. Any research into the validity of
slavery perforce led the investigators to inquire into the justice of
the enforced status of women; and the two causes were early united.
Women like Angelina and Sarah Grimke and Lucretia Mott were pioneers in
numerous anti-slavery conventions. But as soon as they dared to address
meetings in which men were present, a tempest was precipitated; and in
1840, at the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery Association, the men
refused to serve on any committee in which any woman had a part;
although it had been largely the contributions of women which were
sustaining the cause. Affairs reached a climax in London, in 1840, at
the World's Anti-Slavery Convention. Delegates from all anti-slavery
organisations were invited to take part; and several American societies
sent women to represent them. These ladies were promptly denied any
share in the proceedings by the English members, thanks mainly to the
opposition of the clergy, who recollected with pious satisfaction that
St. Paul permitted not a woman to teach. Thereupon Lucretia Mott and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton determined to hold a women's rights convention as
soon as they returned to America; and thus a World's Anti-Slavery
Convention begat an issue equally large.

Accordingly, the first Women's Rights Convention was held at Seneca
Falls, New York, July 19-20, 1848. It was organised by _divorced wives,
childless women, and sour old maids_, the gallant newspapers declared;
that is, by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mrs. Lucretia Mott, Mrs.
McClintock, and other fearless women, who not only lived the purest and
most unselfish of domestic lives, but brought up many children besides.
Great crowds attended. A _Declaration of Sentiments_ was moved and
adopted; and as this exhibits the temper of the convention and
illustrates the then prevailing status of women very clearly, I shall
quote it:

DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS

"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 which impel them to such a course.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: tha