With the view of spreading to the people ideas which hitherto have not been placed before them, and which they may, by reflection, carefully amplify for their own benefit, I have written several papers on Governmental questions of importance and will submit them in due order. For the present the foregoing must suffice. I anticipate criticism; but however unfavorable the comment this letter may evoke I trust that my sincerity will not be called in question. I have deliberately and of my own accord placed myself before the people as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, and having the means, courage, energy and strength necessary for the race, intend to contest it to the close.
VICTORIA C. WOODHULL.
A VIEW OF THE GENERAL SITUATION.
New York, November 10, 1870.
In national as well as in individual affairs, it is well to occasionally take an exact account of the situation in which we are; to balance “our general books,” to see whether the balance is to the “debit or credit” or “profit and loss,” and to decide from the results obtained whether satisfactory progress has been made. As nothing more than “a journal” of such affairs as we shall take into the account has been kept, it will be our duty to “post” these affairs into a new “ledger” from existing “journals,” and also to enter up the new balances which we may find standing to the several accounts.
At no time since the close of the Revolutionary War has there been a time more fitting and inviting for such a work. The whole world is in a ferment, which was begun by the terrific strife into which the course of events forced us, and from which we have just emerged through the reconstruction of an almost demolished Governmental structure. Not all of the legitimate results of that strife are even yet externally apparent, either in our own country or in the world at large. There are various undercurrents, eddies and outcroppings which have never been taken into any consideration; but when considered, the destiny of this country, so long foreshadowed, but which was pretty nearly eclipsed, shines forth more clearly brilliant than ever before.
Whatever may have been the arguments favorable for the continuance of the institution of slavery, the destruction of it has rendered them nugatory, and but few of those who once used them could now be found to favor its resurrection. The atmosphere is cleared of the cloud it was draped with, under its influence, and the radiant sun of freedom now shines for all, and the star of hope our night was illumined by shall now no more be dimmed by the dense fogs that were wont to arise from its then already decaying carcass. With its destruction the lives of two great political parties passed away, and left the people with no distinct lines of demarkation. It is true that there bodies still exist, but the process of disintegration is rapidly going on, and the stench of their decay fills the nostrils of all whose senses are rendered acute by the intensifying power of intuitive perception.
Creation is from one point toward one purpose, the extremes of which course, are beyond the comprehension of human ken. Any fact in the line of its progress may be considered, and the relations it bears to contemporaneous facts determined. A fact isolated from all connections loses its significance. The comparison of a fact with other facts forms the basis of all relative knowledge, and the further this comparison is extended, the wider the range of this knowledge becomes: while an infinite series of facts constitutes the sum total of creation.
Hence, to obtain a substantially correct knowledge of the present, the facts of it must not only be considered as facts of the present, but their relations to, and dependencies upon prior facts, out of which they arose, must be traced, so that it may be determined why they exist. It is not sufficient to simply assert that this or that is thus or so. To do so carries no conviction nor prophetic knowledge of what must be next, as a necessary sequence. But if a retrospective glance be taken of the causes that produced it, it is thus demonstrated why it is thus. If the demonstration is placed with the fact, and their tendencies are examined, it may be fair to conclude that what they may next lead to, may be in a measure predicated. The chief value, then, of an intimate knowledge of the past is, that from it the future may be foreseen, and that the lesson it teaches may assist in the formation of aids to the natural order of things.
If a tree or plant is desired in a certain place, for a certain purpose, its growth is promoted by all the means which experience has demonstrated will assist. All other growths that draw from the same source for supplies, and thereby diminish its fountain of supplies, are destroyed; the weeds are uprooted, and if the natural supplies which the earth and air furnish are not sufficient for its demands, that which is lacking is supplied. The same line of action should govern in the various departments of nature, and especially in the higher departments of mind.