Victoria Claflin Woodhull
(1838-1927)

American Women's Rights Advocate
First woman to run for US President (1872)
National Women's Hall of Fame

birthdate: September 23
birthplace:
Homer, Ohio

QUOTES

this is an epoch of sudden changes and startling surprises. What may appear absurd today will assume a serious aspect tomorrow.

The uses of government should be to foster, protect and promote the possession of equality.

The uses of government should be to foster, protect and promote the possession of equality. How does the condition of society reply to this standard for government? Is there anything that even approaches to equality in any of the various phases of life? I unhesitatingly answer, no! Look where we may...everything is made to turn upon the rights of property, and nothing upon the rights of humanity."

“We are plotting revolution! We will overthrow this bogus Republic and plant a government of righteousness in its stead.”

"Hundreds, thousands, aye, millions of human beings, men, women and children, wander the streets of our cities and the highways of our country, hungry, ragged and cold, vainly seeking in this land of plenty, where physical want should be unknown."

"Good care is taken that each state shall have its prisons . . . and other asylums; but not one building is erected nor one law enforced that would teach the people how not to contribute to these over-crowded receptacles of human misery . . . . All of our politicians are ready to deal with the effects, but not one of them is brave enough to penetrate the substratum of society and deal with the cause."

"A new educational system in which all children born shall have the same advantage of physical, industrial, mental and moral culture, and thus be equally prepared at maturity to enter upon active, responsible and useful lives. . . . In so doing, it strikes a fatal blow at . . . the most demoralizing of all monopolies. . . educational superiority."

"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 system of criminal jurisprudence, by which the death penalty shall no longer be inflicted . . . 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."

It is not great wealth in a few individuals that proves a country is prosperous, but great general wealth evenly distributed among the people. . . It is the struggling masses who are the foundation ; and if the foundation be rotten or insecure, the rest of the structure must eventually crumble."

 

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