Read Ebook: 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 th by Woodhull Victoria C Victoria Claflin

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unger and more rapidly changing peoples of America. There might be reasons without number adduced in support of the suggested course, while valid ones against it cannot be found. The power such a nation would represent would be one that neither nor all of the prospective Continental European countries could hinder from pursuing its predestined work in Asia and Africa, to which latter division enterprise is just being attracted by the discovery of immense diamond countries, which are first offered as the necessary temptation to draw people to it, who shall afterward find other riches than precious stones within its virgin soil, as other than golden wealth has been found in California.

Thus, in as comprehensive a manner as possible, is presented the present general situation and its evident tendencies, which bring us to the special consideration of the present condition of the country, which, of all countries, is destined to play the most prominent part in the third order of civilization--the United States of America.

We have just arisen mightier than ever from a civil war which was intended by the world's conservatism to destroy us, and with a population of forty millions we step at once into the front ranks of, and into the lead in, the grand march of progress. Our Government is a nearer approach to a popular form, and more nearly allied to true freedom and justice than any other in existence. We have, however, only to review the causes which led to the civil war to see how far we still are from a perfect form.

How much better would it have been had the situation been understood and controlled; had the Government shown itself competent to meet it; had it raised armies and occupied the disaffected country and then abolished slavery, which it was finally obliged to do, but which could have been done previously without the sacrifice of life and wealth. Such action would have exhibited the highest order of statesmanship and would have been the admiration of ages.

This examination of the causes which led to the war is made to show, that in our system of government as now administered, there is no responsibility anywhere, and if we drift into danger and destruction no one is accountable; and also, that it is the habitual practice, to evade issues which press for solution, by dodging along with small expedients, hoping the issues themselves will die out or pass away. This has been true of us as a government since corruption first began to find its emissaries among our legislators, and since, it has continually grown more and more decidedly a feature of its administration, until to-day we stand a gigantic nation without giving any indication that we realize our power or that we have any national policy other than to be quite certain that we do not interfere with any of the nice arrangements of other nations, or that we do not lend struggling freedom a sympathetic helping hand, such as we first acquired life by.

There have been two great political divisions of the people called Republican and Democratic, the issue between which, grew entirely out of the slavery question and its sequel, War and Reconstruction. These issues are all settled. Slavery can never more be made a party issue. All efforts that have been made to galvanize it into life have proved futile. The Democratic party leaders have pretty nearly given up the issue as utterly dead, though many of the rank and file still mouth "the nigger." The Republican party has absolutely nothing to make it hold together except possession of place and power, which in these times of levying official taxation is no inconsiderable advantage. As for issues and policies, both parties absolutely lack them. The Democratic and Republican parties exist to-day in opposition to each other, simply and solely because they were opposed to each other upon the issues now dead. No live issues divide them. All of these which are before the people find advocates and opposers in both ranks, so that in reality there are no political parties in existence which represent any question to be solved or settled. Nothing could be more appropriate in the political musterings and parades of either party than that upon their banners should be inscribed--

WANTED, A POLICY.

With a young intelligence such as we represent, no old issues can be made to divide parties. Upon such questions as have heretofore been made the distinguishing features of political parties, there should be no misunderstanding. That there is, demonstrates that the principles of government have not been taught to the people. It teaches that party leaders have built up theories which lack the support of science and principle; and in this way all those issues upon which the permanent vitality of the country depends have been put before the people, colored and trimmed to suit their prejudices and to shape parties into opposition. Were all of these issues taught to the people as the legitimate deduction of the science of government, and entirely bereft of partisanship, they would all work together for the obtaining of more, greater and better conditions and privileges. To bring about this course for the people is the object of the science of society which is just beginning to be recognized.

There are but three principles by which all questions should be tested: Freedom, Equality and Justice; and when legislation shall be brought to the test of these, and entirely abstracted from partisanship, there will not be very much further legislation to be performed. All questions now undecided, which still remain before the people, such as those of finance, commerce, revenue, internal improvements, and international policy, should have the touchstone of these principles applied, and they should be decided thereby. It should be asked of them, What course do you point out which will be consistent with freedom, which shall not interfere with equality, and which shall be just to everybody? We venture to assert that, tried by these tests, not a single line of policy which is now being pursued by the Government will stand. Surely its financial policy cannot; for what is there in it which is consistent with the constitutional question of freedom? Surely its revenue, its tariff system, cannot, for what is there in either which is not in direct antagonism with equality?--while we may look in vain for even the skeleton of justice wherever money can find its way.

All this is true, and very much more, and it comes of the departure of legislation and administration from the fundamental propositions of the Constitution. It is also true that such conditions cannot last. The people, as a whole, are not entirely unregenerate, though so many of their self-appointed leaders are. It only remains for the people to become fully aroused to the depths of corruption to which legislation and administration have been carried to demand and obtain the needed redress. This corruption is not confined to Government, but it has permeated nearly all corporate organizations, many of which are organized specially to defraud the productive classes of their hard-earned wealth. The possibility of this being done is because our system of finance is entirely wrong, and nothing will save the country from general financial and commercial ruin except complete revolution in this system. If the ruin comes it will ultimately fall upon the producing classes. In other words, the producing interests of the country cannot sustain the inflation of prices which has been brought about by speculation, in alliance with fraud, which are the ruling spirits of the day.

It may be said that such radical changes as will depose the powers which rule us, and inaugurate the reign of principles, which will secure freedom, equality and justice to every power, cannot yet be introduced. We aver that they can; and further, we aver that unless it is done, revolution such as has never yet been known will inaugurate them for us. The whole substrata of society is seething and foaming with pent-up endurance of injustice and wrong, and unless those abuses which have produced this condition are remedied at once, the existence of the Government cannot be counted upon. And it is criminal to seek to ignore this fact. We must not "lie supinely upon our backs while the enemy binds us hand and foot," and delivers us to destruction.

In view, then, of our destiny as a nation, and in view of the position which the order of events seems to have assigned us, we are called upon to put our Government in perfect order before the constructive part of the work of the third part of the order of civilization is to be begun. We must be perfect within ourselves before we can expect to become the pattern for others, or expect that others will gravitate to us. THE REVIEW OF THE GENERAL SITUATION, then, results in the finding that the process of diffusive government has culminated, and that the process of a continuously constructive and concentrating government has already been begun, in which our Government, as the most progressive representative of the principles upon which a perfect government can alone exist, is assigned the leading position, and that we, recognizing this assignment, should proceed to assume the responsibilities and the duties which legitimately flow from it; and they are great in the same degree that our destiny is great.

SECOND PRONUNCIAMENTO.

The time has now arrived when it becomes proper to present the final and unanswerable proposition, which cannot by any possibility be controverted, that the several States which, until recently, assumed and exercised the right of defining which of its citizens should exercise the right to vote, have by their own voluntary act not only forever repealed all such prohibitory laws, but also have forever barred their re-enactment.

To bring the whole matter properly before the public I published an address on the 2d of April last, in which I announced myself a candidate for the Presidency in 1872, and thus asserted the right of woman to occupy the highest office in the gift of the people.

In this address the general bearings of the Constitution were examined, and from the blending of its various parts the conclusion was arrived at that no State should deny the right to vote to any citizen.

I now take the final step, and show that the States themselves, by their legislative enactments, have removed the only obstacle which until then had prevented women from voting, and have forever debarred themselves from receding to their former position. It is as follows:

A right of a citizen is inherent in the individual, of which he cannot be deprived by any law of any State.

And for all these reasons, the State Legislatures having, by the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, abrogated all previously existing, conflicting laws on the subject of suffrage, are now forever precluded by the Fourteenth Amendment from re-establishing any restriction to apply to women, whom the authorities of the United States, in their support of the Constitution, are in duty bound to protect in their right to vote.

In the Senate:

Mr. Harris presented the memorial of Victoria C. Woodhull, praying for the passage of such laws as may be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the right vested by the Constitution in the citizens of the United States to vote without regard to sex; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary and ordered to be printed.

In the House:

No objection was made, and it was ordered accordingly.

The petition is as follows:

THE MEMORIAL OF VICTORIA C. WOODHULL,

And whereas, the continuance of the enforcement of said local election laws, denying and abridging the Right of Citizens to Vote on account of sex, is a grievance to your memorialist and to various other persons, citizens of the United States, being women,--

Therefore, your memorialist would most respectfully petition your Honorable Bodies to make such laws as in the wisdom of Congress shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the right vested by the Constitution in the citizens of the United States to vote, without regard to sex.

And your memorialist will ever pray.

VICTORIA C. WOODHULL.

This memorial having been referred to the Judiciary Committee, I then prepared and submitted the following legal deductions in support thereof:

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.

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 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."

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?

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