Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Contribution Of Liberty To The American Republic

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Liberty is a word that is as central to today’s life as it was to the American Republic. What does it mean? Quite simply it means: “the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.” Liberty has played a key role in civilization in various ways. There are many written documents and books that explain and define liberty and what it means to each member of a society. Liberty was the cause of battles, protests, and some of the most important documentation in America’s history, and even in the present time of 2016. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Seneca Falls Declaration (1848), Thomas Jefferson’s The Final Text of the Declaration of Independence (July 4th …show more content…

One documental example of how liberty impacted life during the American Republic is The Seneca Falls Declaration by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Canton, along with fellow feminist Lucretia Mott, initiated the very first women’s rights convention in America’s history. Canton believed that both men and women should have equal rights. She modeled her argument after Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. Canton used Jefferson’s Declaration as her archetypal for basing her argument because America wanted freedom from a tyrant king and women wanted freedom from tyrant men. She gave both the problems and the solutions to all of the discourtesies and injustices imposed upon women of that time. She used her declaration as a means to proclaim women’s liberty from men and to be treated as equals under the grounds of the original Declaration. Canton claimed “… in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation-in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because …show more content…

The Cherokee simply wanted the liberty that was their birthright, to stay on their land and to continue life as they knew it. The Cherokee people had even been promised their own land in several treaties they had signed with the United States federal government, but the United States president refused to acknowledge them. The Cherokee people tried to appeal to the fact that they were being driven from the land they had inhabited for many years. They tried to follow the regulations that were put upon them. They set up schools and constructed a written constitution similar to the United States, they became farmers and even owned some slaves, yet still they were not awarded liberty. The new land they were being made to move to was unknown to them. It also did not have the aspect of being close to the dead members of their tribe and family was extremely important to the Cherokee people. The Cherokee claimed, “we cannot endure to be deprived of our national and individual rights and subjected to a process of intolerable oppression. We wish to remain on the land of our fathers. We have a perfect & original right to claim without interruption or molestation.” Unfortunately, the Cherokee were never bestowed with liberty and several thousand Native Americans died on the forced move from their

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