The Fathers of the Revolution begin their protest by saying: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:--That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Mothers of the Woman's Rebellion add nothing to the meaning, but detract greatly from the force of its expression, when in their parody they say: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These women of all in America were the first to belittle themselves by seeming to assume that in a revolutionary document that was promulgated to declare a determination to wrest from tyranny the liberty that was an inalienable right for all, they and their sex were excluded because the generic term "man" was employed in relation to another inalienable right, which was about to be set forth,--that of revolution against intolerable tyranny. The Americans who framed that instrument would have been the last men in the world to assert that women were not the equals of men. They were not discussing abstract human or sex conditions. They met "to institute a new government." The Mothers of the Woman's Rebellion had an inalienable right to meet "to institute a new government," if they believed as sincerely as did the Fathers of the Revolution that "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinced a design to reduce them under absolute despotism." Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were their natural and God-given rights. If they truly believed that these were trampled upon by government, they might be justified in revolting and attempting to form a new government. That they did not so believe, seems to be proved by their statement that "they knew that woman had wrongs, but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was increased from the fact that they themselves were fortunately organized and conditioned." The Declaration of Independence meant war against the ever-growing encroachment of despotism. The gauntlet was thrown down at the feet of a king by his subjects. The Declaration of Sentiments meant war against the whole social order as then constituted. The gauntlet was thrown down at the feet of man by those who declared him to be a determined foe. They had not the remotest notion of "instituting a new government," far from it; they relied upon the old government to sustain them in making their attempted "rebellion" a revolution. Without the backing of the state's defence, they had no expectation or hope of enforcing any new enactment they might desire. They were gladly consenting to be governed, in order to prove that they withheld consent.