"Remember the Ladies"
When John Adams went to Philadelphia in 1776 to attend the meeting of the Continental Congress and draft the Declaration of Independence, he received a letter from his wife which may have been the first lobbying performed in the United States. In her letter Abigail Adams implores her husband to "remember the ladies." Adams could already see that the possibility of being shackled into another tyranny was high. Although the Declaration was meant to free Americans from the tyranny of English rule, if men wrote the rules women would simply be handed from one tyrant to another. Knowing this Adams wrote, "do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands...remember all men would be tyrants if they could" (Adams Family Papers). Although John Adams did not take his wife's letter seriously, the Declaration did allow some gender-neutral language that would later help the suffrage movement take hold. The phrase "the consent of the governed" is one that would later be used by the early suffragists to lay the groundwork for their movement.
The Declaration of Sentiments
The Declaration of Sentiments was drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848 and was signed by 68 women and 32 men at the first Woman's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, NY. With help from other convention leaders, Stanton took the Declaration of Independence as her model stating "we hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal. The leaders then laid out a list of grievances that had been historically placed on women, and demanded that women be given equal education, equal treatment under the law, and the right to vote. They wrote, "the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of absolute tyranny over her." Including the right to vote in the declaration was controversial, even among those at the convention who stood for equality. The idea of women voting was so ludicrous to many Americans that the leaders of the convention feared that putting that demand into the declaration would cause people to dismiss them as fanatics. The Seneca Falls convention is often used to mark the beginning of the American woman's suffrage movement, however, it would take many years before the mainstream American citizenship, and even those who fought for equality, would see the movement as anything more than a small group of social outcasts with completely unrealistic, and radical notions.
"Hurrah, and vote for suffrage"
This letter was sent to Rep. Harry Burn, of Tennessee, by his mother Febb Burn and it turned out to be the very thing that pushed the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment over the edge. In the letter Mrs. Burn says, "hurrah, and vote for Suffrage and don't keep them in doubt" (Sewall-Belmont). Like the letter sent to John Adams nearly 150 years before, this letter demonstrates how women had been affecting change in this country long before finally given full rights. The women who lived prior to the Nineteenth Amendment may not have been full citizens in the eyes of the government, however, they knew how to use the power they had over the ruling men to get things done. Women have been politicians and expert negotiators since long before they were given "official" power, in fact, it was this power that made men want to hold them back, men knew that, given complete freedom, women could rule the world.