The Origin, Tendencies and Principles of Government / A review of the rise and fall of nations from early historic time to the present; with special considerations regarding the future of the United States as the representative government of the world and the form of administration which will secure this consummation. Also, papers on human equality, as represented by labor and its representative, money; and the meaning and significance of life from a scientific standpoint, with its prophecies for the great future.

by Victoria C. Woodhull

CONSTITUTIONAL EQUALITY.

To the Hon. the Judiciary Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States:

The undersigned, Victoria C. Woodhull, having most respectfully memorialized Congress for the passage of such laws as in its wisdom shall seem necessary and proper to carry into effect the rights vested by the Constitution of the United States in the citizens to vote, without regard to sex, begs leave to submit to your honorable body the following in favor of her prayer in said Memorial which has been referred to your Committee:

The public law of the world is founded upon the conceded fact that sovereignty cannot be forfeited or renounced. The sovereign power of this country is perpetual in the politically-organized people of the United States, and can neither be relinquished nor abandoned by any portion of them. The people in this Republic who confer sovereignty are its citizens: in a monarchy the people are the subjects of sovereignty. All citizens of a republic by rightful act or implication confer sovereign power. All people of a monarchy are subjects who exist under its supreme shield and enjoy its immunities.

The subject of a monarch takes municipal immunities from the sovereign as a gracious favor; but the woman citizen of this country has the inalienable “sovereign” right of self-government in her own proper person. Those who look upon woman’s status by the dim light of the common law, which unfolded itself under the feudal and military institutions that establish right upon physical power, cannot find any analogy in the status of the woman citizen of this country, where the broad sunshine of our Constitution has enfranchised all.

As sovereignty cannot be forfeited, relinquished or abandoned, those from whom it flows—the citizens—are equal in conferring the power, and should be equal in the enjoyment of its benefits and in the exercise of its rights and privileges.

One portion of citizens have no power to deprive another portion of rights and privileges such as are possessed and exercised by themselves. The male citizen has no more right to deprive the female citizen of the free, public, political expression of opinion than the female citizen has to deprive the male citizen thereof.

The sovereign will of the people is expressed in our written Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land. The Constitution makes no distinction of sex. The Constitution defines a woman born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, to be a citizen. It recognizes the right of citizens to vote. It declares that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of “race, color or previous condition of servitude.”

Women, white and black, belong to races; although to different races. A race of people comprises all the people, male and female. The right to vote cannot be denied on account of race. All people included in the term race have the right to vote, unless otherwise prohibited.

Women of all races are white, black or some intermediate color. Color comprises all people, of all races and both sexes. The right to vote cannot be denied on account of color. All people included in the term color have the right to vote unless otherwise prohibited.

With the right to vote sex has nothing to do. Race and color include all people of both sexes. All people of both sexes have the right to vote, unless prohibited by special limiting terms less comprehensive than race or color. No such limiting terms exist in the Constitution.

Women, white and black, have from time immemorial groaned under what is properly termed in the Constitution “previous condition of servitude.”

Women are the equals of men before the law, and are equal in all their rights as citizens.

Women are debarred from voting in some parts of the United States, although they are allowed to exercise that right elsewhere.

Women were formerly permitted to vote in places where they are now debarred therefrom.

The Naturalization Laws of the United States expressly provide for the naturalization of women.

But the right to vote has only lately been distinctly declared by the Constitution to be inalienable, under three distinct conditions—in all of which woman is distinctly embraced.

The citizen who is taxed should also have a voice in the subject matter of taxation. “No taxation without representation” is a right which was fundamentally established at the very birth of our country’s independence; and by what ethics does any free government impose taxes on women without giving them a voice upon the subject or a participation in the public declaration as to how and by whom these taxes shall be applied for common public use?

Women are free to own and to control property, separate and apart from males, and they are held responsible in their own proper persons, in every particular, as well as men, in and out of court.

Women have the same inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that men have. Why have they not this right politically, as well as men?

Women constitute a majority of the people of this country—they hold vast portions of the nation’s wealth and pay a proportionate share of the taxes. They are intrusted with the most holy duties and the most vital responsibilities of society; they bear, rear and educate men; they train and mould their characters; they inspire the noblest impulses in men; they often hold the accumulated fortunes of a man’s life for the safety of the family and as guardians of the infants, and yet they are debarred from uttering any opinion, by public vote, as to the management by public servants of these interests; they are the secret counsellors, the best advisers, the most devoted aids in the most trying periods of men’s lives, and yet men shrink from trusting them in the common questions of ordinary politics. Men trust women in the market, in the shop, on the highway and the railroad, and in all other public places and assemblies, but when they propose to carry a slip of paper with a name upon it to the polls, they fear them. Nevertheless, as citizens women have the right to vote; they are part and parcel of that great element in which the sovereign power of the land had birth: and it is by usurpation only that men debar them from their right to vote. The American nation, in its march onward and upward, cannot publicly choke the intellectual and political activity of half its citizens by narrow statutes. The will of the entire people is the true basis of republican government, and a free expression of that will by the public vote of all citizens, without distinctions of race, color, occupation or sex, is the only means by which that will can be ascertained. As the world has advanced in civilization and culture; as mind has risen in its dominion over matter; as the principle of justice and moral right has gained sway, and merely physically organized power has yielded thereto; as the might of right has supplanted the right of might, so have the rights of women become more fully recognized, and that recognition is the result of the development of the minds of men, which through the ages she has polished, and thereby heightened the lustre of civilization.

It was reserved for our great country to recognize by constitutional enactment that political equality of all citizens which religion, affection, and common sense should have long since accorded; it was reserved for America to sweep away the mist of prejudice and ignorance, and that chivalric condescension of a darker age, for in the language of Holy Writ, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the work of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day.”

It may be argued against the proposition that there still remains upon the statute books of some States the word “male” to an exclusion, but as the Constitution in its paramount character can only be read by the light of the established principle, ita lex Scripta est; and as the subject of sex is not mentioned and the Constitution is not limited either in terms or by necessary implication in the general rights of citizens to vote, this right cannot be limited on account of anything in the spirit of inferior or previous enactments upon a subject which is not mentioned in the supreme law. A different construction would destroy a vested right in a portion of the citizens, and this no legislature has a right to do without compensation, and nothing can compensate a citizen for the loss of his or her suffrage—its value is equal to the value of life. Neither can it be presumed that women are to be kept from the polls as a mere police regulation: it is to be hoped, at least, that police regulations in their case need not be very active. The effect of the amendments to the Constitution must be to annul the power over this subject in the States whether past, present or future, which is contrary to the amendments. The amendments would even arrest the action of the Supreme Court in cases pending before it prior to their adoption, and operate as an absolute prohibition to the exercise of any other jurisdiction than merely to dismiss the suit.

3 Dall., 382; 6 Wheaton, 405; 9 Id., 868; 3d Circ., Pa., 1832.

And if the restrictions contained in the Constitution as to color, race or servitude, were designed to limit the State governments in reference to their own citizens, and were intended to operate also as restrictions on the Federal power, and to prevent interference with the rights of the State and its citizens, how then can the State restrict citizens of the United States in the exercise of rights not mentioned in any restrictive clause in reference to actions on the part of those citizens having reference solely to the necessary functions of the General Government, such as the election of representatives and senators to Congress, whose election the Constitution expressly gives Congress the power to regulate?

S. C., 1847: Fox vs. Ohio, 5 Howard, 410.

Your memorialist complains of the existence of State Laws, and prays Congress, by appropriate legislation, to declare them, as they are, annulled, and to give vitality to the Constitution under its power to make and alter the regulations of the States contravening the same.

It may be urged in opposition that the Courts have power, and should declare upon this subject.

The Supreme Court has the power, and it would be its duty so to declare the law; but the Court will not do so unless a determination of such point as shall arise make it necessary to the determination of a controversy, and hence a case must be presented in which there can be no rational doubt. All this would subject the aggrieved parties to much dilatory, expensive and needless litigation, which your memorialist prays your Honorable Body to dispense with by appropriate legislation, as there can be no purpose in special arguments “ad inconvenienti,” enlarging or contracting the import of the language of the Constitution.

Therefore, Believing firmly in the right of citizens to freely approach those in whose hands their destiny is placed, under the Providence of God, your memorialist has frankly, but humbly, appealed to you, and prays that the wisdom of Congress may be moved to action in this matter for the benefit and the increased happiness of our beloved country.

Most respectfully submitted,

VICTORIA C. WOODHULL.

Dated New York, January 2, 1871.

The issue upon the question of female suffrage being thus definitely and clearly set forth, and its rights inalienably vested in woman, a brighter future dawns upon the country. When Congress shall have moved in the matter, and thus secured to woman the free exercise of these newly-defined rights, she can unite in purifying the elements of political strife—in restoring the Government to pristine integrity, strength and vigor. To do this, many reforms become of absolute necessity. Prominent among these are—

A reform in representation by which all Legislative Bodies and the Presidential Electoral College shall be so elected that minorities as well as majorities shall have direct representation.

A complete reform in Executive and Departmental conduct, by which the President and the Secretaries of the United States, and the Governors and State Officers shall be forced to recognize that they are the servants of the people, appointed to attend to the business of the people, and not for the purpose of perpetuating their official positions, or of securing the plunder of public trusts for the enrichment of their political adherents and supporters.

A reform in the tenure of office, by which the Presidency shall be limited to one term, with a retiring life pension, and a permanent seat in the Federal Senate, where his Presidential experience may become serviceable to the nation, and on the dignity and life emolument of Presidential Senator he shall be placed above all other political position, and be excluded from all professional pursuits.

A radical reform in our Civil Service, by which the Government, in its executive capacity, shall at all times secure faithful and efficient officers, and the people trustworthy servants, whose appointment shall be entirely removed from, and be made independent of, the influence and control of the legislative branch of the Government, and who shall be removed for “cause” only, and who shall be held strictly to frequent public accounting to superiors for all their official transactions, which shall forever dispose of the corrupt practices induced by the allurements of the motto of present political parties, that “to the victor belong the spoils,” which is a remnant of arbitrarily assumed authority, unworthy of a government emanating from the whole people.

A reform in our systems of finance, by which the arbitrary standard of ancient and feudal despotisms shall be removed; by which the true source of wealth shall become the basis and the security of a national currency, which shall be made convertible into a National Bond bearing such an interest, while in the hands of the people, as shall secure an equilibrium between the demands of all the varieties of exchanges and the supply of money to effect them with, the Bond being also convertible at pleasure into money again, by which system of adjustment, “plethora” equally with “tightness” shall be banished from the financial centres of our country; and which, in its practical workings, shall secure such pecuniary equality between the employing and the laboring classes as will forever make poverty and its long list of consequent ills impossible in our country; and which shall suggest the solution of those schemes which are being discussed for “funding the public debt” at a lower rate of interest.

A complete reform in our system of Internal improvements, which connect and bind together the several States in commercial unity, to the end that they shall be conducted so as to administer to the best interests of the whole people, for whose benefit they were first permitted, and are now protected; by which the General Government, in the use of its postal powers, and in the exercise of its duties in regulating commerce between the States, shall secure the transportation of passengers, merchandise and the mails, from one extremity of the country to the opposite, and throughout its whole area, at the actual cost of maintaining such improvements, plus legitimate interest upon their original cost of construction, thus converting them into public benefits, instead of their remaining, as now, hereditary taxes upon the industries of the country, by which, if continued, a few favored individuals are likely to become the actual rulers of the country.

A complete reform in commercial and navigation laws, by which American built or purchased ships and American seamen shall be practically protected by the admission of all that is required for construction of the first, or the use and maintenance of either, free in bond or on board.

A reform in the relations of the employer and employed, by which shall be secured the practice of the great natural law, of one-third of time to labor, one-third to recreation and one-third to rest, that by this, intellectual improvement and physical development may go on to that perfection which the Almighty Creator designed.

A reform in the principles of protection and revenue, by which the largest home and foreign demand shall be created and sustained for products of American industry of every kind; by which this industry shall be freed from the ruinous effects consequent upon frequent changes in these systems; by which shall be secured that constant employment to workingmen and workingwomen throughout the country which will maintain them upon an equality in all kinds and classes of industry; by which a continuous prosperity—which, if not so marked by rapid accumulation, shall possess the merit of permanency—will be secured to all, which in due time will reduce the cost of all products to a minimum value; by which the laboring poor shall be relieved of the onerous tax, now indirectly imposed upon them by government; by which the burden of governmental support shall be placed where it properly belongs, and by which an unlimited national wealth will gradually accumulate, the ratio of taxation upon which will become so insignificant in amount as to be no burden to the people.

A reform by which the power of legislative bodies to levy taxes shall be limited to the actual necessities of the legitimate functions of government in its protection of the rights of persons, property and nationality; and by which they shall be deprived of the power to exempt any property from taxation; or to make any distinctions directly or indirectly among citizens in taxation for the support of government; or to give or loan the public property or credit to individuals or corporations to promote any enterprise whatever.

A reform in the system of criminal jurisprudence, by which the death penalty shall no longer be inflicted—by which the hardened criminal shall have no human chance of being let loose to harass society until the term of the sentence, whatever that may be, shall have expired, and by which, during that term, the entire prison employment shall be for—and the product thereof be faithfully paid over to—the support of the criminal’s family; and by which our so-called prisons shall be virtually transformed into vast reformatory workshops, from which the unfortunate may emerge to be useful members of society, instead of the alienated citizens they now are.

The institution of such supervisory control and surveillance over the now low orders of society as shall compel them to industry, and provide for the helpless, and thus banish those institutions of pauperism and beggary which are fastening upon the vitals of society, and are so prolific of crime and suffering in certain communities.

The organization of a general system of national education, which shall positively secure to every child of the country such an education in the arts, sciences and general knowledge as will render them profitable and useful members of society, and the entire proceeds of the public domain should be religiously devoted to this end.

Such change in our general foreign policy as shall plainly indicate that we realize and appreciate the important position which has been assigned us as a nation by the common order of civilization; which shall indicate our supreme faith in that form of government which emanates from, and is supported by, the whole people, and that such government must eventually be uniform throughout the world; which shall also have in view the establishment of a Grand International Tribunal, to which all disputes of peoples and nations shall be referred for final arbitration and settlement, without appeal to arms; said Tribunal maintaining only such an International army and navy as would be necessary to enforce its decrees, and thus secure the return of the 15,000,000 of men who now compose the standing armies of the world, to industrial and productive pursuits.

Thus in the best sense do I claim to be the friend and exponent of the most complete equality to which humanity can attain; of the broadest individual freedom compatible with the public good, and that supreme justice which shall know no distinction among citizens upon any ground whatever, in the administration and the execution of the laws; and also, to be a faithful worker in the cause of human advancement; and especially to be the co-laborer with those who strive to better the condition of the poor and friendless; to secure to the great mass of working people the just reward of their toil,—I claim from these, and from all others in the social scale, that support in the bold political course I have taken, which shall give me the strength and the position to carry out these needed reforms, which shall secure to them, in return, the blessings which the Creator designed the human race should enjoy.

If I obtain this support, woman’s strength and woman’s will, with God’s support, if He vouchsafe it, shall open to them, and to this country, a new career of greatness in the race of nations, which can only be secured by that fearless course of truth from which the nations of the earth, under despotic male governments, have so far departed.

VICTORIA C. WOODHULL.

New York, January 10, 1871.