November 25, 1871
[Page 14]
WOMAN ITEMS.
The authorities of Harvard College have refused the application of a Nashua lady, who desired to attend the law school….
A young lady—Miss Kitty Anderson—voted at the recent election in Taylor County, Iowa. The Bedford Southwest says the judges of election decided that she had a legal right to vote, by virtue of the Fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
In England, a majority of the persons signing the marriage register of the parish make their mark. A clergyman explains in a newspaper that this is not due to illiteracy wholly, but that one in five of the persons who thus sign themselves in his parish, do so because they are too drunk to write….
NEW SOCIETY.—Louisville has a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Wives. Upwards of thirty members have been enrolled, and they propose to raise a fund to be used in enforcing the law to its fullest extent against wife beaters. If this does not effect a cure, the offender is to be treated on homeopathic principles. Whenever a man is known to be guilty of whipping his wife a warning notice is to be sent to him, and a repetition of the offense will insure him the kind attention of the society.
A good deal of attention has lately been attracted to the number of applications for divorce, or rather legal separation, in France, so that the following statistical statement is not without interest: In 1869 the petitions for separation rose from 2,999, which was the number in the previous year, to 3,056….
The English workingman’s wife is, in nine case[s] out of ten, a woman of very imperfect or of no education, who knows next to nothing of domestic economy. Her principal idea of cooking is to take a joint to the neighboring baker and have it baked in his oven without trouble to herself. She does not know how to make soups, broths, stews or savory dishes, or how to convert a pound of meat, by the aid of vegetables and condiments, into a dish satisfying alike to the palates and stomachs of three or four or even half a dozen people….
[Page 8]
THE NEW YORK TIMES OPEN TO THE FAIR PRESENTATION OF ALL SUBJECTS.
The following letter speaks for itself :
THE RIGHT OF WOMEN TO VOTE—A PROTEST FROM MRS. WOODHULL.
To the Editor of the New York Times :
I have been refused the right of voting by the Democratic inspectors of my district, the Republican dissenting and desiring to receive my vote. Under the election laws of the State, the inspectors are, or I am, “guilty of felony,” since either they prevented a legal voter from voting, or I attempted to vote illegally ! and either they or I shall be convicted of the crime.
Section 1, article 2, of the State Constitution provides :
” All male citizens, &c., &c., shall be entitled to vote.” Section 1, article 1, provides : ” No member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.”
I am a member of the State, and no law has been enacted to di-franchise or deprive me of any right or privilege secured to other citizens. Nevertheless, I was deprived of the greatest of all rights—the right to vote. Moreover, if a single citizen of the State of New York has the right to vote, every other citizen has the same right, with the exceptions referred to. The point involved can by no possible stretch be made to cover the right of the State to exclude women citizens from suffrage, since no law is better established than that a right secured by positive terms cannot be taken away by implication ; and to take away the rights secured by article 1, section 1, of the Constitution in such terms by article 2, section 1, because it fails to provide for female citizens in terms, would be to take away “rights ” by implication. The Constitution of the United States is also equally clear in securing the right to vote to all persons. The Fourteenth Amendment, section 1, provides :
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States….
So much has been said in the daily press about my claim being ” a farce,” while journals persistently shut their columns to all rebutting arguments, that I trust you may do your women readers the justice to publish this outline of the position by which it is claimed that women are legal voters under both the State and Federal Constitutions. One-sided and dogmatic journalism is too common, and I shall hail the day when a free press may be inaugurated.
VICTORIA C. WOODHULL.
No. 44 Broad street, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 1871.
[Page 7]
AN exchange remarks: “If the next generation of women do vote, will they be educated to the proper standard to do so intelligently? They seldom or never read political newspapers, history or works on political economy. It may be said that young men do the same. That may be; but from their earliest days they hold [conversational] intercourse with men, or hear them talking on such topics. Young women have no such opportunities; how, then can they, as a class, be educated up to a true voting standard? It would be well for female reformers to look to this.”
[This is bosh! Practically and in the way our elections are managed no one but a few politicians and wire-pullers know anything of the personal merits of the candidates. They are elected not because they are good citizens, but through going partisans. As to the average young woman, she is as intelligent as the average young man. She studies history and grammar and algebra just as he does, and in private life the woman actually does take a lively interest in politics. Else whence all the stories about woman’s patriotic devotion during the war and her earnestness in times of political excitement.]
[Page 4]
FROM the Baltimore Sunday Telegram of October 29 we clip the following: “It is Victoria Woodhull who has been pronounced insane. Queen Victoria has only rheumatism in the foot.”
We feel the same in regard to Mrs. Woodhull’s insanity as the Irishman did about his friend’s sickness: Pat’s friend being drunk, and after coaxing him till he was tired, he resorted to rather rough measures to get him home, an old lady who was passing remonstrated with him for treating a sick man in such cruel manner. Pat, looking at her with a cunning grin, said, “Be gorra, it’s miself that would loik to have half his sickness.”
Let me here add that I think it would be a great benefit to the world if more of our women had half Victoria C. Woodhull’s craziness.
E.G.G.
Webmaster’s Note:Victoria Woodhull attempted to vote one year before Susan B. Anthony’s famous attempt. It wasn’t until 1920 with the 19th Amendment that the right to vote could not be denied on account of sex.
These are actual extracts from the Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly. Sentences or paragraphs that have been removed are indicated with the ellipsis (….)
When this web site began in September 1999, there were no digitized copies of Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly available online. Now you can find an almost complete run on the IAPSOP web site which has no affiliation with Victoria Woodhull & Company: