rights for which they contended were the rights of human nature.
If these rights are ignored in the case of one-half the people,
the nation is surely preparing for its downfall. Governments try
themselves. The recognition of a governing and a governed class
is incompatible with the first principles of freedom. Woman has
not been a heedless spectator of the events of this century, nor
a dull listener to the grand arguments for the equal rights of
humanity. From the earliest history of our country woman has
shown equal devotion with man to the cause of freedom, and has
stood firmly by his side in its defense. Together, they have made
this country what it is. Woman's wealth, thought and labor have
cemented the stones of every monument man has reared to liberty.

And now, at the close of a hundred years, as the hour-hand of the
great clock that marks the centuries points to 1876, we declare
our faith in the principles of self-government; our full equality
with man in natural rights; that woman was made first for her own
happiness, with the absolute right to herself--to all the
opportunities and advantages life affords for her complete
development; and we deny that dogma of the centuries,
incorporated in the codes of all nations--that woman was made for
man--her best interests, in all cases, to be sacrificed to his
will. We ask of our rulers, at this hour, no special favors, no
special privileges, no special legislation. We ask justice, we
ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that
belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and
our daughters forever.[13]

The declaration was warmly applauded at many points, and after
scattering another large number of printed copies, the delegation
hastened to the convention of the National Association. A meeting
had been appointed for twelve, in the old historic First Unitarian
church, where Rev. Wm. H. Furness preached for fifty years, but
whose pulpit was then filled by Joseph May, a son of Rev. Samuel J.
May. To this place the ladies made their way to find the church
crowded with an expectant audience, which greeted them with thanks
for what they had just done; the first act of this historic day
taking place on the old centennial platform in Independence Square,
the last in a church so long devoted to equality and jus