Editing Victoria Woodhull (section)

=== Presidential candidate ===
{{Main|United States presidential election, 1872}}
[[File:Victoria Woodhull caricature by Thomas Nast 1872.jpg|thumb|right|"Get thee behind me, (Mrs.) Satan!" 1872 caricature by [[Thomas Nast]]: Wife, carrying a heavy burden of children and drunk husband, admonishing (Mrs.) Satan (Victoria Woodhull), "I'd rather travel the hardest path of matrimony than follow your footsteps." Mrs. Satan's sign reads, "Be saved by free love."]]

On April 2, 1870, Woodhull's letter to the editor of the ''[[New York Herald]]'' was published, announcing her candidacy.<ref>{{Cite news|date=April 2, 1870|title=Victoria Woodhull announces her candidacy on Apr. 2, 1870 in the New York Herald|pages=5|work=The New York Herald|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/6836678/victoria-woodhull-announces-her/|access-date=July 18, 2021}}</ref> She was influenced by retired Civil War general and congressman Benjamin Butler by basing her candidacy on the idea that there was no need for women to have special legislation to win suffrage as they already had attained it through the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution. <ref>Richardson, Betty. “Victoria Woodhull.” Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, Apr. 2023. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=82d77a98-8a1a-3f92-98e1-7456142323f0.</ref>

Woodhull was nominated for [[president of the United States]] by the newly formed [[National Equal Rights Party|Equal Rights Party]] on May 10, 1872, at Apollo Hall, New York City. A year earlier, she had announced her intention to run. Also in 1871, she publicly spoke out against the government only being composed of men; she proposed the development of a new constitution and the creation of a new government a year thence.<ref>''A Lecture on Constitutional Equality'', also known as ''The Great Secession Speech'', speech to Woman's Suffrage Convention, New York, May 11, 1871, excerpt quoted in {{harvnb|Gabriel|1998|loc=pp. 86–87, n. 13}} (author Mary Gabriel journalist, Reuters News Service). Also excerpted, differently, in {{harvnb|Underhill|1996 |pp= 125–126}}.</ref> Her nomination was ratified at the convention on June 6, 1872, making her the first woman candidate.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The First Woman To Run For President: Victoria Woodhull (U.S. National Park Service)|url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-first-woman-to-run-for-president-victoria-woodhull.htm|access-date=July 18, 2021|website=www.nps.gov|language=en}}</ref>

Woodhull's campaign was also notable because [[Frederick Douglass]] was nominated as its vice-presidential candidate, even though he did not take part in the convention. He did not acknowledge his nomination and did not play any active role in the campaign.<ref name="FD-VP" /> His nomination stirred up controversy about the mixing of [[White people|white]] and [[Black people|black]] people in public life, and fears of [[miscegenation]]. The Equal Rights Party hoped to use the nominations to reunite suffragists with African-American [[Civil and political rights|civil rights]] activists, because the exclusion of female suffrage from the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] two years earlier had caused a substantial rift between the groups.{{citation needed|date = September 2023}}

Having been vilified in the media for her support of [[free love]], Woodhull devoted an issue of ''Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly'' (November 2, 1872) to an alleged adulterous affair between Elizabeth Tilton and Reverend [[Henry Ward Beecher]], a prominent Protestant minister in Brooklyn. He supported female suffrage but had lectured against free love in his sermons. Woodhull published the article to highlight what she saw as a sexual double standard between men and women.<ref name="Woodhull 2010">{{cite book |last1=Woodhull |first1=Victoria C. |editor-last=Carpenter |editor-first=Cari M |title=Selected Writings of Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and Eugenics |publication-place=Lincoln |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |chapter=14: The Beecher-Tilton Scandal Case |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/selectedwritings0000wood/page/98/mode/2up |chapter-url-access=registration |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8032-2995-2 |oclc=794700538 |url=https://archive.org/details/selectedwritings0000wood |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

That same day, a few days before the presidential election, [[United States Marshals Service|U.S. Federal Marshals]] arrested Woodhull, her second husband, [[Colonel James Blood]], and her sister Tennie on charges of "publishing an obscene newspaper" because of the content of this issue.<ref>{{cite news |title=Arrest of Victoria Woodhull, Tennie C. Claflin and Col. Blood. They are Charged with Publishing an Obscene Newspaper. |url-access=registration |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F03E5DB1439EF34BC4B53DFB7678389669FDE |quote=The agent of the Society for the Suppression of Obscene Literature, yesterday morning, appeared before United States Commissioner Osborn and asked for a warrant for the arrest of Mrs. Victoria C. Woodhull and Miss Tennie ...|newspaper=The New York Times |date=November 3, 1872 |access-date=June 27, 2008 }}</ref> The sisters were held in the [[Ludlow Street Jail]] for the next month, a place normally reserved for civil offenses but that also held more hardened criminals. The arrest was arranged by [[Anthony Comstock]], the self-appointed moral defender of the nation at the time. Opponents raised questions about censorship and government persecution. The three were acquitted on a technicality six months later, but the arrest prevented Woodhull from attempting to vote during the 1872 presidential election. With the publication of the scandal, [[Theodore Tilton]], Elizabeth's husband, sued Beecher for "criminal conversation" (adultery) and [[Alienation of affections|alienation of affection]]. The 1875 trial was sensationalized across the nation and resulted in a hung jury.{{sfn|Goldsmith|1998|}}{{Page needed|date=February 2021}}

Woodhull received no electoral votes in the election of 1872, an election in which six different candidates received at least one electoral vote, and a negligible, but unknown, percentage of the popular vote. A man in Texas said that he had voted for her, saying he was casting his vote against Grant.<ref name="Shearer"/>

Woodhull again tried to gain nominations for the presidency in [[1884 United States presidential election|1884]] and [[1892 United States presidential election|1892]]. Newspapers reported that her 1892 attempt culminated in her nomination by the "National Woman Suffragists' Nominating Convention" on September 21. [[Marietta Stow|Marietta L. B. Stow]] of California was nominated as the candidate for vice president. The convention was held at Willard's Hotel in [[Boonville (town), New York|Boonville, New York]], and [[Anna M. Parker]] was its president.<ref>{{Cite news |last= |first= |date= |title=Daily public ledger. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1892-191?, September 23, 1892, Image 3 |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86069117/1892-09-23/ed-1/seq-3/ |access-date=February 23, 2023 |issn=2157-3484}}</ref> Some women's suffrage organizations repudiated the nominations, claiming that the nominating committee was unauthorized.<ref>{{Cite news |last= |first= |date= |title=Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, September 28, 1892, Image 9 |pages=9 |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024546/1892-09-28/ed-1/seq-9/ |access-date=February 23, 2023 |issn=2157-1295}}</ref> Woodhull was quoted as saying that she was "destined" by "prophecy" to be elected president of the United States in the upcoming election.{{citation needed|date=March 2017}}