In one paragraph, explain why leaders of the women's rights movement decided to model the Declaration of Sentiments after the Declaration of Independence.

Declaration of Sentiments, document, outlining the rights that American women should be entitled to as citizens, that emerged from the Seneca Falls Convention in New York in July 1848. Three days before the convention, feminists Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mary Ann McClintock met to assemble the agenda for the meeting along with the speeches that would be made. The Declaration of Sentiments, written primarily by Stanton, was based on the Declaration of Independence to parallel the struggles of the Founding Fathers with those of the women’s movement. As one of the first statements of the political and social repression of American women, the Declaration of Sentiments met with significant hostility upon its publication and, with the Seneca Falls Convention, marked the start of the women’s rights movement in the United States.

1st amendment: freedom of speech, religion, petition, press, and assembly

2nd: right to bear arms

3rd: quartering of soldiers

4th: search and seizure