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2) Regarding Woodhull's presentation to the House Judiciary Committee where she was the first woman to address a congressional committee which she did while suffrage organization was meeting in Washington: "Accounts of reactions among the suffragists vary. Most of them hadn't heard of Woodhull's coup until they read about her imminent appearance at the Capitol in the Washington papers on January 11 [1871?]." page 101
3) "Woodhull had taken the position that voting was no longer a privilege granted to women. It was a constitutional right they possessed as citizens, a right they had been denied. " page 108
4) "In the Weekly she proposed to the House the wording for her own declaratory act, a more forthright, less ambiguous statement: "Resolved, by the House of Representatives, that the right of suffrage is one of the inalienable rights of citizens of the United States, subject to regulation by the states, through equal and just laws. That this right is included in 'privileges of citizens of the United States' which are guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and that women citizens, who are otherwise qualified by the laws of the state where they reside, are competent voters for Representatives in Congress." page 110
5) "I hold then that, in denying me this right without my having forfeited it, departure is made from the principles of [the] Constitution. . . If the free man pays no taxes without representation, how is it that the free woman is compelled to do so? Not long since I was notified by a United States tax officer that if I did not pay a certain tax the government had imposed upon me, my property would be levied upon and sold for that purpose. Is this tyranny. . . ? I am subject to tyranny. I am taxed in every conceivable way. " pages111
6) In a letter from Elisabeth Cady Stanton:
"I have though much . . . of our dear Woodhull, and all the gossip about her, and come to the conclusion that it is a great impertinence in any of us to pry into her affairs. . .This is one of man's most effective engines for our division and subjugation. He creates the public sentiment, builds the gallows, and then makes us hangman for our own sex. Women have crucified the Mary Wollstonecrafts, the Fanny Wrights, the George Sands, the Fanny Kembles of all ages, and now men mock us with the fact, and say we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes and plait the crown of thorns." pages 119 -120
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Sunshine for Women encourages you to support our feminist sisters by purchasing their books, reading them, disseminating the ideas they contain, but most especially, by making their book available to our sisters, our daughters, and the community at large by requesting your school library, your public library, and area bookstores to carry their books. Remember it is not enough to write literature, history, and theology, we must pass these works on to future generations. Help us to preserve these works for a new generation by putting them on library bookshelves.