[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 102 (Monday, July 27, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9061-S9064]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST WOMEN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, last week marked the 150th 
anniversary of one of the most important events in our history.
  In July, 1848 a revolution was taking place in a small brick chapel 
in a village in upstate New York. The first Women's Rights Convention 
was held at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20 of 
that year. There, a small group ratified the ``Declaration of 
Sentiments,'' a document which may be considered the Magna Carta of the 
women's movement. The Declaration proclaimed that:

       All men and women are created equal: That they are endowed 
     by their Creator with

[[Page S9062]]

     certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, 
     liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

  That was the first American political idea--that women are equal in 
civic rights with men. It did not come from Europe, or ancient Athens, 
or Rome. It came right from central New York.
  In 1980, we established a Women's Rights Historic Park at Seneca 
Falls and Waterloo, commemorating this monumental convention. Former 
Senator Javits and I proposed a bill to create an historic park within 
Seneca Falls to commemorate the early beginnings of the women's 
movement and to recognize the important role Seneca Falls has played in 
the movement. The park consists of five sites: the 1840's Greek Revival 
home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, organizer and leader of the women's 
rights movement; the Wesleyan Chapel, where the First Women's Rights 
Convention was held; Declaration Park with a 100 foot waterwall 
engraved with the Declaration of Sentiments and the names of the 
signers of Declaration; and the M'Clintock house, home of MaryAnn and 
Thomas M'Clintock, where the Declaration was drafted.
  Mrs. Clinton visited a number of these sites as part of her ``Save 
America's Treasures'' tour. There she spoke to the meaning of the 
Women's Rights Convention and called for the work of these pioneers to 
continue into the next century.
  I ask that the text of Mrs. Clinton's speech be printed in the 
Record.
  The speech follows:

              Remarks of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton

       Thank you for gathering here in such numbers for this 
     important celebration. I want to thank Governor Pataki and 
     Congresswoman Slaughter and all the elected officials who are 
     here with us today. I want to thank Mary Anne and here 
     committee for helping to organize such a great celebration. I 
     want to thank Bob Stanton and the entire Park Service staff 
     for doing such an excellent job with the historic site. I 
     want to thank our choirs. I thought the choirs really added; 
     I want to thank our singers whom we've already heard from and 
     will hear from because this is a celebration and we need to 
     think about it in such terms.
       But for a moment, I would like you to take your minds backs 
     a hundred and fifty years. Imagine if you will that you are 
     Charlotte Woodward, a nineteen-year-old glove maker working 
     and living in Waterloo. Everyday you sit for hours sewing 
     gloves together, working for small wages you cannot even 
     keep, with no hope of going on in school or owning property, 
     knowing that if you marry, your children and even the clothes 
     on your body will belong to your husband.
       But then one day in July, 1848, you hear about a women's 
     right convention to be held in nearby Seneca Falls. It's a 
     convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious 
     conditions and rights of women. You run from house to house 
     and you find other women who have heard the same news. Some 
     are excited, others are amused or even shocked, and a few 
     agree to come with you, for at least the first day.
       When that day comes, July 19, 1848, you leave early in the 
     morning in your horse-drawn wagon. You fear that no one else 
     will come; and at first, the road is empty, except for you 
     and your neighbors. But suddenly, as you reach a crossroads, 
     you see a few more wagons and carriages, then more and more 
     all going towards Wesleyan Chapel. Eventually you join the 
     others to form one long procession on the road to equality.
       Who were the others traveling that road to equality, 
     traveling to that convention? Frederick Douglass, the former 
     slave and great abolitionist, was on his way there and he 
     described the participants as ``few in numbers, moderate in 
     resources, and very little known in the world. The most we 
     had to connect us was a firm commitment that we were in the 
     right and a firm faith that the right must ultimately 
     prevail.'' In the wagons and carriages, on foot or horseback, 
     were women like Rhoda Palmer. Seventy years later in 1918, at 
     the age of one-hundred and two, she would cast her first 
     ballot in a New York state election.
       Also traveling down that road to equality was Susan Quinn, 
     who at fifteen will become the youngest signer of the 
     Declaration of Sentiments. Catharine F. Stebbins, a veteran 
     of activism starting when she was only twelve going door to 
     door collecting anti-salvery petitions. She also, by the way, 
     kept an anti-tobacco pledge on the parlor table and asked all 
     her young male friends to sign up. She was a woman truly 
     ahead of her time, as all the participants were.
       I often wonder, when reflecting back on the Seneca Falls 
     Convention, who of us--men and women--would have left our 
     homes, our families, our work to make that journey one 
     hundred and fifty years ago. Think about the incredible 
     courage it must have taken to join that procession. Ordinary 
     men and women, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, 
     husbands and wives, friends and neighbors. And just like 
     those who have embarked on other journeys throughout American 
     history, seeking freedom or escapings religious or political 
     persecution, speaking out against slavery, working for labor 
     rights. These men and women were motivated by dreams of 
     better lives and more just societies.
       At the end of the two-day convention, one hundred people, 
     sixty-eight women and thirty-two men, signed the Declaration 
     of Sentiments that you can now read on the wall at Wesleyan 
     Chapel. Among the signers were some of the names we remember 
     today: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, Martha 
     Wright and Frederick Douglass and young Charlotte Woodward. 
     The ``Seneca Falls 100,'' as I like to call them, shared the 
     radical idea that America fell far short of her ideals stated 
     in our founding documents, denying citizenship to women and 
     slaves.
       Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who is frequently credited with 
     originating the idea for the Convention, knew that women were 
     not only denied legal citizenship, but that society's 
     cultural values and social structures conspired to assign 
     women only one occupation and role, that of wife and mother. 
     Of course, the reality was always far different. Women have 
     always worked, and worked both in the home and outside the 
     home for as long as history can record. And even though 
     Stanton herself had a comfortable life and valued deeply her 
     husband and seven children, she knew that she and all other 
     women were not truly free if they could not keep wages they 
     earned, divorce an abusive husband, own property, or vote for 
     the political leaders who governed them. Stanton was 
     inspired, along with the others who met, to rewrite our 
     Declaration of Independence, and they boldly asserted, ``We 
     hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women 
     are created equal.''
       ``All men and all women.'' It was the shout heard around 
     the world, and if we listen, we can still hear its echoes 
     today. We can hear it in the voices of women demanding their 
     full civil and political rights anywhere in the world. I've 
     heard such voices and their echoes from women, around the 
     world, from Belfast to Bosnia to Beijing, as they work to 
     change the conditions for women and girls and improve their 
     lives and the lives of their families. We can even hear those 
     echoes today in Seneca Falls. We come together this time not 
     by carriage, but by car or plane, by train or foot, and yes, 
     in my case, by bus. We come together not to hold a 
     convention, but to celebrate those who met here one hundres 
     and fifty years ago, to commemorate how far we have traveled 
     since then, and to challenge ourselves to persevere on the 
     journey that was begun all those many years ago.
       We are, as one can see looking around this great crowd, men 
     and women, old and young, different races, different 
     backgrounds. We come to honor the past and imagine the 
     future. That is the theme the President and I have chosen for 
     the White House Millennium Council's efforts to remind and 
     inspire Americans as we approach the year 2000. This is my 
     last stop on the Millennium Council's tour to Save 
     America's Treasures--those buildings, monuments, papers 
     and sites--that define who we are as a nation. They 
     include not only famous symbols like the Star Spangled 
     Banner and not only great political leaders like George 
     Washington's revolutionary headquarters, or creative 
     inventors like Thomas Edison's invention factory, but they 
     include also the women of America who wrote our nation's 
     past and must write its future.
       Women like the ones we honor here and, in fact, at the end 
     of my tour yesterday, I learned that I was following 
     literally in the footsteps of one of them, Lucretia Mott, 
     who, on her way to Seneca Falls, stopped in Auburn to visit 
     former slaves and went on to the Seneca Nations to meet with 
     clan mothers, as I did.
       Last evening, I visited the home of Mary Ann and Thomas 
     M'Clintock in Waterloo, where the Declaration of Sentiments 
     was drafted, and which the Park Service is planning to 
     restore for visitors if the money needed can be raised. I 
     certainly hope I can return here sometime in the next few 
     years to visit that restoration.
       Because we must tell and retell, learn and relearn, these 
     women's stories, and we must make it our personal mission, in 
     our everyday lives, to pass these stories on to our daughters 
     and sons. Because we cannot--we must not--ever forget that 
     the rights and opportunities that we enjoy as women today 
     were not just bestowed upon us by some benevolent ruler. They 
     were fought for, agonized over, marched for, jailed for and 
     even died for by brave and persistent women and men who came 
     before us.
       Every time we buy or sell or inherit property in our own 
     name--let us thank the pioneers who agitated to change the 
     laws that made that possible.
       Every time, every time we vote, let us thank the women and 
     men of Seneca Falls, Susan B. Anthony and all the others, who 
     tirelessly crossed our nation and withstood ridicule and the 
     rest to bring about the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
       Every time we enter an occupation--a profession of our own 
     choosing and receive a paycheck that reflect earnings equal 
     to a male colleague, let us thank the signers and women like 
     Kate Mullaney, who's house I visited yesterday, in Troy, New 
     York.
       Every time we elect a woman to office--let us thank ground 
     breaking leaders like Jeannette Rankin and Margaret Chase 
     Smith, Hattie Caraway, Louise Slaughter, Bella Abzug, Shirley 
     Chisholm--all of whom proved that a woman's place is truly in 
     the House, and in the Senate, and one day, in the White 
     House, as well.

[[Page S9063]]

       And every time we take another step forward for justice in 
     this nation--let us thank extraordinary women like Harriet 
     Tubman, whose home in Auburn I visited yesterday, and who 
     escaped herself from slavery, and, then risked her life, time 
     and again, to bring at least two hundred other slaves to 
     freedom as well.
       Harriet Tubman's rule for all of her underground railroad 
     missions was to keep going. Once you started--no matter how 
     scared you got, how dangerous it became--you were not allowed 
     to turn back. That's a pretty good rule for life. It not only 
     describes the women who gathered in Wesleyan Chapel in 1848, 
     but it could serve as our own motto for today. We, too, 
     cannot turn back. We, too, must keep going in our commitment 
     to the dignity of every individual--to women's rights as 
     human rights. We are on that road of the pioneers to Seneca 
     Falls, they started down it 150 years ago. But now, we too, 
     must keep going.
       We may not face the criticism and derision they did. They 
     understood that the Declaration of Sentiments would create no 
     small amount of misconception, or misrepresentation and 
     ridicule; they were called mannish women, old maids, 
     fanatics, attacked personally by those who disagreed with 
     them. One paper said, ``These rights for women would bring a 
     monstrous injury to all mankind.'' If it sounds familiar, 
     it's the same thing that's always said when women keep going 
     for true equality and justice.
       Those who came here also understood that the convention and 
     the Declaration were only first steps down the road. What 
     matters most is what happens when everyone packs up and goes 
     back to their families and communities. What matters is 
     whether sentiment and resolutions, once made, are fulfilled 
     or forgotten. The Seneca Falls one hundred pledged themselves 
     to petition, and lit the pulpit and used every 
     instrumentality within their power to affect their subjects. 
     And they did. But they also knew they were not acting 
     primarily for themselves. They knew they probably would not 
     even see the changes they advocated in their own lifetime. In 
     fact, only Charlotte Woodward lived long enough to see 
     American women finally win the right to vote.
       Those who signed that Declaration were doing it for the 
     girls and women--for us--those of us in the twentieth 
     century.
       Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote a letter to her daughters 
     later in life enclosing a special gift and explaining why. 
     ``Dear Maggie and Hattie, this is my first speech,'' she 
     wrote, ``it contains all I knew at that time; I give this 
     manuscript to my precious daughters in the hopes that they 
     will finish the work that I have begun.'' And they have. Her 
     daughter, Harriot Blatch, was the chief strategist of the 
     suffrage movement in New York. Harriot's daughter, Nora 
     Barney, was one of the first women to be a civil engineer. 
     Nora's daughter, Rhoda Jenkins, became an architect. Rhoda's 
     daughter, Colleen Jenkins-Sahlin is an elected official in 
     Greenwich, Connecticut. And her daughter, Elizabeth is a 
     thirteen-year-old, who wrote about the six generations of 
     Stantons in a book called, 33 Things Every Girl Should Know.
       So, far into the twentieth century, the work is still being 
     done; the journey goes on. Now, some might say that the only 
     purpose of this celebration is to honor the past, that the 
     work begun here is finished in America, that young women no 
     longer face legal obstacles to whatever education or 
     employment choices they choose to pursue. And I certainly 
     believe and hope all of you agree that we should, everyday, 
     count our blessings as American women.
       I know how much change I have seen in my own life. When I 
     was growing up back in the fifties and sixties, there were 
     still barriers that Mrs. Stanton would have recognized-- 
     scholarships I couldn't apply for, schools I couldn't go 
     to, jobs I couldn't have--just because of my sex. Thanks 
     to federal laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 
     Title 9, and the Equal Pay Act, legal barriers to equality 
     have fallen.
       But if all we do is honor the past, then I believe we will 
     miss the central point of the Declaration of Sentiments, 
     which was, above all, a document about the future. The 
     drafters of the Declaration imagined a different future for 
     women and men, in a society based on equality and mutual 
     respect. It falls to every generation to imagine the future, 
     and it is our task to do so now.
       We know that, just as the women 150 years ago knew, that 
     what we imagine will be principally for our daughters and 
     sons in the 21st century. Because the work of the Seneca 
     Falls Convention is, just like the work of the nation itself, 
     it's never finished, so long as there remain gaps between our 
     ideals and reality. That is one of the great joys and 
     beauties of the American experiment. We are always striving 
     to build and move toward a more perfect union, that we on 
     every occasion keep faith with our founding ideals, and 
     translate them into reality. So what kind of future can we 
     imagine together.
       If we are to finish the work begun here--then no American 
     should ever again face discrimination on the basis of gender, 
     race or sexual orientation anywhere in our country.
       If we are to finish the work begun here--then $0.76 in a 
     woman's paycheck for every dollar in a man's is still not 
     enough. Equal pay for equal work can once and for all be 
     achieved.
       If we are to finish the work begun here--then families need 
     more help to balance their responsibilities at work and at 
     home. In a letter to Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton 
     writes, ``Come here and I will do what I can to help you with 
     your address, if you will hold the baby and make the 
     pudding.'' Even then, women knew we had to have help with 
     child care. All families should have access to safe, 
     affordable, quality child care.
       If we are to finish the work begun here--then women and 
     children must be protected against what the Declaration 
     called the ``chastisement of women,'' namely domestic abuse 
     and violence. We must take all steps necessary to end the 
     scourge of violence against women and punish the perpetrator. 
     And our country must join the rest of the world, as so 
     eloquently Secretary Albright called for on Saturday night 
     here in Seneca Falls, ``Join the rest of the world and ratify 
     the convention on the elimination of discrimination against 
     women.''
       If we are to finish the work begun here--we must do more 
     than talk about family values, we must adopt policies that 
     truly value families--policies like a universal system of 
     health care insurance that guarantees every American's access 
     to affordable, quality health care. Policies like taking all 
     steps necessary to keep guns out of the hands of children and 
     criminals. Policies like doing all that is necessary at all 
     levels of our society to ensure high quality public education 
     for every boy or girl no matter where that child lives.
       If we are to finish the work begun here--we must ensure 
     that women and men who work full-time earn a wage that lifts 
     them out of poverty and all workers who retire have financial 
     security in their later years through guaranteed Social 
     Security and pensions.
       If we are to finish the work begun here--we must be 
     vigilant against the messages of a media-driven consumer 
     culture that convinces our sons and daughters that what brand 
     of sneakers they wear or cosmetics they use is more important 
     that what they think, feel, know, or do.
       And if we are to finish the work begun here--we must, above 
     all else, take seriously the power of the vote and use it to 
     make our voices heard. What the champions of suffrage 
     understood was that the vote is not just a symbol of our 
     equality, but that it can be, if used, a guarantee of 
     results. It is the way we express our political views. It is 
     the way we hold our leaders and governments accountable. It 
     is the way we bridge the gap between what we want our nation 
     to be and what it is.
       But when will the majority of women voters of our country 
     exercise their most fundamental political right? Can you 
     imagine what any of the Declaration signers would say if they 
     learned how many women fail to vote in elections? They would 
     be amazed and outraged. They would agree with a poster I saw 
     in 1996. On it, there is a picture of a woman with a piece of 
     tape covering her mouth and under it, it says, ``Most 
     politicians think women should be seen and not heard. In the 
     last election, 54 million women agreed with them.''
       One hundred and fifty years ago, the women at Seneca Falls 
     were silenced by someone else. Today, women, we silence 
     ourselves. We have a choice. We have a voice. And if we are 
     going to finish the work begun here we must exercise our 
     right to vote in every election we are eligible to vote in.
       Much of who women are and what women do today can be traced 
     to the courage, vision, and dedication of the pioneers who 
     came together at Seneca Falls. Now it is our responsibility 
     to finish the work they began. Let's ask ourselves, at the 
     200th anniversary of Seneca Falls, will they say that today's 
     gathering also was a catalyst for action? Will they say that 
     businesses, labor, religious organizations, the media, 
     foundations, educators, every citizen in our society came to 
     see the unfinished struggle of today as their struggle?
       Will they say that we joined across lines of race and 
     class, that we raised up those too often pushed down, and 
     ultimately found strength in each other's differences and 
     resolved in our common cause? Will we, like the champions at 
     Seneca Falls, recognize that men must play a central role in 
     this fight? How can we ever forget the impassioned plea of 
     Frederick Douglas, issued in our defense of the right to 
     vote?
       How can we ever forget that young legislator from Tennessee 
     by the name of Harry Burns, who was the deciding vote in 
     ratifying the 19th Amendment. He was planning on voting 
     ``no,'' but then he got a letter from his mother with a 
     simple message. The letter said, ``Be a good boy Harry and do 
     the right thing.'' And he did! Tennessee became the last 
     state to ratify, proving that you can never ever overestimate 
     the power of one person to alter the course of history, or 
     the power of a little motherly advice.
       Will we look back and see that we have finally joined the 
     rest of the advanced economies by creating systems of 
     education, employment, child care and health care that 
     support and strengthen families and give all women real 
     choices in their lives.
       At the 200th anniversary celebration, will they say that 
     women today supported each other in the choices we make? Will 
     we admit once and for all there is no single cookie cutter 
     model for being a successful and fulfilled woman today, that 
     we have so many choices? We can choose full-time motherhood 
     or no family at all or like most of us, seek to strike a 
     balance between our family and our work, always trying to do 
     what is right in our lives. Will we leave our children a 
     world where it is self-evident that all men and women, boys 
     and girls are created equal?

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     These are some of the questions we can ask ourselves.
       Help us imagine a future that keeps faith with the 
     sentiments expressed here in 1848. The future, like the past 
     and the present, will not and cannot be perfect. Our 
     daughters and granddaughters will face new challenges which 
     we today cannot even imagine. But each of us can help prepare 
     for that future by doing what we can to speak out for justice 
     and equality for women's rights and human rights, to be on 
     the right side of history, no matter the risk or cost, 
     knowing that eventually the sentiments we express and the 
     causes we advocate will succeed because they are rooted in 
     the conviction that all people are entitled by their creator 
     and by the promise of America to the freedom, rights, 
     responsibilities, and opportunity of full citizenship. That 
     is what I imagine for the future. I invite you to imagine 
     with me and then to work together to make that future a 
     reality.
       Thank you all very much.

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