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... stricter exercise of that right, and it is your duty not only to accord it, but as a community, to see that I am protected in it. I trust that I am fully understood for I mean just that, and nothing else. In her speech regarding children Victoria placed the responsibility of child rearing in the hands of government when the perfect conditions of life are beyond the reach of the parents. She felt that the education of children should develop them into ideal men and women.
Traditional methods were reliant on parents and religious teachings, but Victoria proclaimed the proper instruction would come from Scientists since Science was progressive and religion conservative, making Science the preferred in her opinion. She believed that half of the children between the ages of ten and fifteen would be in superior health mentally, physically, and morally, if they had been entrusted to proper industrial institutions. In the same speech she advocated a womans right to control family planning and the introduction of sex education to children as well claiming that: true modesty and true general worth consist, in part, at least, of a complete knowledge and practice of them. It is full time that we have done with the sham modesty and affected virtue with which humanity has been cursed (Speech Archives 2). Womens suffrage groups were divided over the controversial reputation of Mrs.
Woodhull. Some feared that supporting her would make a mockery out of their issues because of her reputation as radical. Her outspoken manner and willingness to be in the forefront made her popular with the suffragists that were frustrated with the more conservative members of the movement. Victoria in virtue of her flamboyance made mainstream feminists appear reasonable and moderate by contrast.
Her willingness to blaze the trail and endure criticism made way for others. Regardless of having no official affiliation with organized suffrage groups, she was awarded the friendship of many famous Suffragists including Susan B. Anthony, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Below Lockwood, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Many of them remained her friend for the rest of their lives (Puz 16). In January 1871, Victoria addressed Congress on the matter of Womens suffrage with the sponsorship of Massachusetts Representative Benjamin Butler. Victoria addressed the House Judiciary Committee to assert that Women already had the right to vote as citizens of the United States (Albanese 915).
She demanded her right to participate in the political process citing the Constitution of the United States in her defense. As the subject of her speech titled Constitutional Equality she outlined the appeal she had made to Congress. In part it said that as a citizen she was required to pay taxes and was held accountable for following the tax and criminal statutes yet she was not allowed to vote and that must be unconstitutional. If the freeman pays no taxes without representation, how is it that the freeman is compelled to do so? ... So, it appears that our fathers declared that no one should be bound by any law in the making of which he had no voice. How would this principle operate should I refuse to pay the taxes levied against me without my consent and in direct opposition to my wishes?
She also referred to the XIV and XV amendments as having a wrong interpretation in excluding women since by including a provision that no race of American citizen could be denied the right to vote, woman as roughly half of every race must also be included since they were not expressly excluded: How can you look in your sisters faces and declare they shall not enjoy the citizens rights, granted the lowest orders and classes in the human race? (Speech Archives 3). Eventually Victoria and her sister Tennessee were plagued by legal battles and financial ruin over scandals involving the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and stockbroker Luther Challis. The Weekly published exposes detailing the affairs of the Reverend and a married parishioner and Challis boasting of his conquests of young girls. Victoria was arrested and spent the final days of her campaign for the presidency in jail, including election eve, her name did not appear on the ballot. Victoria, after being jailed for weeks and paid excessive amounts of bail, and was found innocent of obscenity counts in 1873 and of libel in 1874 (Puz 17). A few years later Victoria divorced James Blood on grounds of adultery, reneging on a lifetime of principles.
She moved to England, where she married her third husband John Biddulp Martin. Victoria continued to flash into the public spectrum though she never regained the popularity and notoriety she had once had. In her move to England Victoria changed, for two decades she led a campaign to expose hypocrisy but then seemed submerged in it. At her height of notoriety, Victoria found support in suffragists, reformers, temperance unions, Internationalists, and Spiritualists. She supported progress and the possibility of a free and perfect society that was socialist in nature and supreme equality. In her lifetime she was adored and praised by some, scorned by just as many, and today may finally be understood.
Source Materials: Books: Goldsmith, Barbara. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull. New York. Alfred A Knopf. 1998. Along, Email Sachs. The Terrible Siren: Victoria Woodhull.
Arno Press. NY, 1972 Forgotten Heroes: Inspiring American Portraits From Our Leading Historians. Ed. Susan Ware.
The Free Press. NY. 1998 Journal Articles: Albanese, Catherine L... Other Powers by Barbara Goldsmith. American Historical Review. June 1999. pp. 915 - 916.
Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. A Victoria Woodhull for the 1990 s. Reviews in American History. 27. 1, 1999. p. 87 - 97 Fowler, Robert Booth. The Woman Who Ran For President by Lois Beachy Underhill. The Journal of American History.
September 1996. pp. 634 - 635 Puz, Susan K ullmann. The Woodhull. The Womens Quarterly. Fall 1988. pp. 16 - 17 Web sites: web web Woodhull & Claflin Weekly print archives linked at: web archive.
htm Speech transcripts linked at: web
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