Three women believed that the Constitution protected their right to vote. They went to Congress (Victoria Woodhull), tried to register to vote (Virginia Minor), or went ahead and voted for president (Susan B. Anthony). Each time, they ultimately failed. Once, two members of Congress supported them. It was the 1870s. Success was in the future. Nonetheless, their energy, passion, and ideas helped this future become a reality.
Victoria Woodhull Goes to Congress
Victoria Woodhull was born in Ohio on September 23, 1838.
She had only a few years of regular schooling. Her family left town under suspicious circumstances, many believing her father burned down a mill he owned for the insurance money.
Victoria appeared to marry wisely at age fifteen. Her doctor husband, however, was an unreliable alcoholic. She divorced him, keeping his last name, and married a Civil War veteran.
Woodhull became a financially successful, radical-leaning journalist, including supporting the free love movement. She also obtained fame and respect as a suffragist.
Rep. Benjamin Butler, a supporter of a woman’s right to vote, invited her to testify to the House Judiciary Committee. She was the first woman to testify to Congress. Woodhull was joined by fellow suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Isabella Beecher Hooker.
She argued that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments protected the rights of men and women to vote. Women are citizens. Voting is a privilege of citizenship. It would be a violation of equal protection and taxation without representation if women could not vote. Woodhull added that women suffered servitude (marriage), which is covered by the Fifteenth Amendment.
The committee rejected her arguments. Voting is not a “privilege” of citizenship protected by the Constitution. States could choose to deny citizens the right to vote unless the Constitution specifically says otherwise. The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which penalizes abridgement of voting rights, only covers “males.” The Fifteenth Amendment concerns racial slavery, not the burdens of all women. Butler and another House member supported Woodhull.
Woodhull ran for president in 1872, though she was not yet thirty-five years old. She obtained notoriety by accusing a leading preacher of adultery. She was charged with libel and obscenity.
Woodhull, after divorcing a second time, ended her life as an activist and became a respectable English aristocrat. She died in 1927 at the age of 88.
Susan B. Anthony Votes
Susan B. Anthony tried to vote for president in 1872.
She voted for President Grant (sorry, Victoria). Anthony argued she had a Fourteenth Amendment right to vote. It was her privilege as a citizen. She was allowed to vote along with a few other women. They were later arrested. She was accused of illegally voting.
Anthony was used to controversy. She was a passionate supporter of the abolition of slavery, temperance, women’s rights (including suffrage), and other reforms.
Justice Ward Hunt presided over the trial and counseled the jury to convict. She refused to pay the $100 fine, willing to go to jail. The judge did not enforce the fine, preventing her hopes for a legal battle. It likely would have failed. The Supreme Court had already interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment narrowly, including not protecting a woman’s right to be a lawyer.
Susan B. Anthony would continue to fight for women’s suffrage. She saw some states and federal territories give women the right to vote.
Nonetheless, Anthony did not live to see the Nineteenth Amendment, often called the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment,” ratified.
Virginia Minor Goes to the Supreme Court
Virginia Minor was born on March 27, 1824 in Virginia. She married Francis Minor in 1843.
Virginia became active in the St. Louis Ladies Union Aid Society during the Civil War. Her public service reaffirmed her belief, shared by her husband, that women deserved political equality. Minor opposed the Fifteenth Amendment because it only protected the right of black men.
She attempted to register to vote in 1872. The registrar, Reese Happersett, refused to accept her registration because women did not have a legal right to vote in Missouri.
Francis Minor, a lawyer, had to sue in her name because married women did not have the right to bring a lawsuit. He argued that women as citizens had the constitutional privilege to vote. It was necessary to republican form of government. It was a matter of equality.
The Supreme Court, unanimously, rejected the argument in Minor v. Happersett (1875). Women were citizens. Nonetheless, voting was not a constitutional privilege of citizenship.
Plus, except for a short time in New Jersey, women were never given the right to vote. Each state clearly had a republican form of government during all this time. Sorry, Virginia.
Virginia Minor continued to fight for suffrage. She became the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890. She died in 1894.
Voting Rights Expand
The Nineteenth Amendment, providing the right to vote for women, was ratified in 1920. English women obtained some voting rights in 1918 and equal voting rights in 1928.
The country ratified additional amendments to protect voting rights. Congress also passed laws protecting the right to vote. The Supreme Court in the 20th Century treated voting as a fundamental right, declaring many laws limiting voting rights as unconstitutional.
Woodhull, Anthony, and Minor were ahead of their time. Nonetheless, their constitutional arguments would ultimately inspire activists and Supreme Court opinions.
There are different ways to interpret the Constitution. Some arguments, including opposition to racial segregation, are first made years before they are successful. The battle is still worth it.