Victoria Claflin Woodhull

Victoria Claflin Woodhull was the first woman to run for president in 1872, as a candidate for the Equal Rights Party. One year before her unsuccessful bid for the White House, Woodhull argued that women had always had the right to vote since 1789, when the U.S. Constitution became the supreme law of the land. Her 1871 A Lecture on Constitutional Equality presents the argument that women are granted the right to vote by the wording of the Constitution. For example, she suggests that, since the Constitution refers to "persons" rather than "men" and "women," this implies the intention of the Founding Fathers to grant women the right to vote. Therefore, she concludes that women should simply go to the polls at the next election and exercise their rights by voting for their preferred...