Editing Seneca Falls Convention (section)

=== Political gains ===
{{Further|Married Women's Property Acts in the United States}}

On April 7, 1848, in response to a citizen's petition, the [[New York State Assembly]] passed the Married Woman's Property Act, giving women the right to retain the property they brought into a marriage, as well as property they acquired during the marriage. Creditors could not seize a wife's property to pay a husband's debts.<ref name=McMillen81/> Leading up to the passage of this law, in 1846, supporters issued a pamphlet, probably authored by Judge John Fine,<ref name=historynow>Historynow.org. Judith Wellman. [http://www.historynow.org/03_2006/historian.html ''The Seneca Falls Convention: Setting the National Stage for Women's Suffrage''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100203135337/http://www.historynow.org/03_2006/historian.html |date=February 3, 2010 }}, Retrieved April 27, 2009.</ref> which relied on its readers' familiarity with the [[United States Declaration of Independence]] to demand "That all are created free and equal&nbsp;...",<ref name=historynow/> and that this idea should apply equally to the sexes. "Women, as well as men, are entitled to the full enjoyment of its practical blessings".<ref name=historynow/> A group of 44&nbsp;married women of western New York wrote to the Assembly in March 1848, saying "your Declaration of Independence declares, that governments derive their just powers from the [[consent of the governed]]. And as women have never consented to, been represented in, or recognized by this government, it is evident that in justice no allegiance can be claimed from them&nbsp;... Our numerous and yearly petitions for this most desirable object having been disregarded, we now ask your august body, to abolish all laws which hold married women more accountable for their acts than infants, idiots, and lunatics."<ref name=historynow/>

[[File:GerritSmith-1840s.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[Gerrit Smith]] made woman suffrage a plank in the [[Liberty Party (1840s)|Liberty Party]] [[Party platform|platform]] on June 14–15, 1848.]]

New York, however, was not the pioneer in this case. Already, in February 1839, [[Mississippi]] had enacted its own Married Women's Property Act, the first state law anywhere to allow married women to independently own and administer property, a statute which was expanded in 1846, 1857, 1868, 1880, and 1890.<ref>Sandra Moncrief, "The Mississippi Married Women's Property Act of 1839," ''Hancock County Historical Society'', [https://www.hancockcountyhistoricalsociety.com/vignettes/the-mississippi-married-womens-property-act-of-1839/]. Accessed 6 February 2024.</ref> The [[Pennsylvania General Assembly|General Assembly in Pennsylvania]] passed a similar married woman's property law a few weeks after New York, one which Lucretia Mott and others had championed. These progressive state laws were seen by American women as a sign of new hope for women's rights.<ref name=McMillen81>McMillen, 2008, p. 81.</ref>

On June 2, 1848, in [[Rochester, New York]], [[Gerrit Smith]] was nominated as the [[Liberty Party (1840s)|Liberty Party]]'s presidential candidate.<ref name=Wellman176/> Smith was Elizabeth Cady Stanton's first cousin, and the two enjoyed debating and discussing political and social issues with each other whenever he came to visit.<ref name=Wellman176>Wellman, 2004, p. 176. Judith Wellman offers the theory that [[Gerrit Smith]] and [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]], during a possible visit by Smith to Seneca Falls between June 2 and June 14, 1848, challenged or encouraged each other to introduce women's voting rights in their separate political and social spheres, as both subsequently did so, Smith taking the first shot.</ref> At the [[National Liberty Convention]], held June 14–15 in [[Buffalo, New York]], Smith gave a major address,<ref>Claflin, Alta Blanche. [https://books.google.com/books?id=c10PAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA50 ''Political parties in the United States 1800–1914''], New York Public Library, 1915, p. 50</ref> including in his speech a demand for "universal suffrage in its broadest sense, females as well as males being entitled to vote."<ref name=Wellman176/> The delegates approved a passage in their [[party platform]] addressing votes for women: "Neither here, nor in any other part of the world, is the right of suffrage allowed to extend beyond one of the sexes. This universal exclusion of woman&nbsp;... argues, conclusively, that, not as yet, is there one nation so far emerged from barbarism, and so far practically Christian, as to permit woman to rise up to the one level of the human family."<ref name=Wellman176/> At this convention, five votes were placed calling for Lucretia Mott to be Smith's vice-president—the first time in the United States that a woman was suggested for federal executive office.<ref name=Wellman176/>