Wright saw it, “Mr. Nast proved a little too much in that picture.”40
Suffrage leaders of the NWSA, particularly Stanton and Anthony, publicly supported Woodhull’s social critique and the idea of a single sexual standard, even though they disagreed privately about the wisdom of associating with her. Stanton dismissed charges of Woodhull’s immorality as irrelevant: “When a woman of this class shall suddenly devote herself to the study of the grave problems of life, brought there by profound thought and experience, and with new faith and hope struggles to redeem the errors of the past by a grand life in the future, shall we not welcome her to the better place she desires to hold?” Stanton saw no practical reason to deny the movement access to Woodhull’s newspaper, powerful connections with the New York media, and network of social radicals. Anthony likewise made a strong public defense of Woodhull, on the ground that women should not be held to a higher standard than male politicians. “I was asked by an editor of a New York paper if I knew of Mrs. Woodhull’s antecedents,” Anthony told the NWSA convention in January 1872. “I said I didn’t, and that I did not care any more for them than I do about those of the members of Congress. Her antecedents will compare favorably with any member of Congress.” Anthony strenuously objected, however, when trance speaker Addie Ballou, who sat upon the NWSA platform, rushed down to the floor to nominate Woodhull as a candidate for president of the United States.41
Figure 15. The “strong-minded women” overrun the Senate Judiciary Committee, then considering Woodhull’s Memorial on the Fourteenth Amendment. Frenetic postures, upraised arms, umbrellas, and eyeglasses designate the women as political agitators. Senator Carpenter’s helpless fear lends the scene a humorous, satirical note. The Days Doings’, February 17, 1872.
Figure 16. Published after her free love speech at New York’s Steinway Hall, this image established Woodhull as a folk devil. Her clawed wings resemble those of the demon Apollyon in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, a religious fable enjoying renewed popularity in the 1870s. Like Bunyan’s hero Christian, the wife in the background willingly shoulders heavy burdens (in her case, a drunken husband, many children, and poverty) and resists the temptation of an easier path that Woodhull offers. Harper’s Weekly, February 17, 1872. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.
Privately, Anthony thought Woodhull was bad for the movement. She was frustrated that Stanton courted the controversial connection in spring 1872 by helping Woodhull and the sex radicals develop a platform for the “Grand Combination Convention” planned for that May.42 Unlike her friend, Anthony became increasingly convinced as she toured the Northwest that winter and early spring that Woodhull was a political liability. Facing declining audiences and insufficient cash receipts throughout the tour, Anthony spent considerable effort clearing up the misconception of many on the west coast that woman suffrage meant free love. She was also personally opposed to the notion of free love, particularly the varietism Woodhull had promoted at Steinway Hall. As she commented in her diary, Woodhull “was the first woman man had succeeded in fashioning to his own ideal—so that she theoretically accepted man’s practical theory of promiscuity or change.” Anthony, who saw varietism as a male-centered philosophy that ignored possibly dire consequences for women, saw much to fear in Woodhull’s public declaration of social freedom.43
To “Shock the World to Its Very Center”
Spiritualists, those most likely to be sympathetic to Woodhull’s unconventional views, similarly divided over the question of Woodhull’s leadership. The Religio-Philosophical Journal editor, S. S. Jones, provided a forum for Spiritualists who supported women’s rights, marriage reform, and free thought, but rejected Woodhull’s revolutionary application of the “principles of social freedom.” Many objected, as had the suffragists, to varietism itself. Moderate Spiritualist Emma Hardinge-Britten, for one, dismissed Woodhull’s views for failing to consider the fate of children born out of wedlock. Moderates also worried that Woodhull’s notoriety would erode the fragile reputation of Spiritualists in the eyes of mainstream Christians, the press, and the public at large. Correspondent Hudson Tuttle voiced the concerns of many readers when he wrote to the Journal early in 1872:
Her notions of love and the marriage relation are the most objectionable, as they place in the hands of our enemies a powerful weapon to wield against us, inasmuch, I regret to say, as she is endorsed, as far as I have noticed, by the spiritual press, and also stands elected President of the association of Spiritualists.44
Sex radicals countered this criticism by noting Spiritualism’s long association with social freedom. Dr. Juliet Severance was blunt: “Talk of freedom as a cause of impurity in social life. Nonsense! It is the only means by which purity becomes possible.” For Severance, Turtle’s criticisms denied Spiritualism’s inherent challenge to conventional morality. “What is the ground of complaint? Simply that she advocates social freedom. Is that any thing new for Spiritualists?” Severance demanded. “I admit that in clear, forcible argument, in earnest, fearless advocacy, she excels any of us who have preceded her, but that she has advanced any more radical ideas on social life, I deny.”45
The popular Spiritualist organ, the Banner of Light, sought the middle ground, hailing the controversy over Woodhull as a means to promote debate on the free love question. Without fully endorsing her views, the paper remained true to the movement’s heterodoxy, and encouraged readers to study Woodhull’s entire lecture (which it reprinted on the front page), not just those portions published, out of context, in the popular press. In February 1872, the Banner gave Woodhull extensive space to defend herself, printed a flood of letters in her favor, and offered readers a running debate on the front pages on the meaning of “social freedom.” Elderly Spiritualist E. S. Wheeler, for one, defended her election, by pointing out that Woodhull gained little by association with Spiritualists. “American Spiritualists have not done a great deal to enlarge the ‘opportunities’ of Victoria C. Woodhull for enunciating her ‘peculiar views,’” Wheeler wrote.
With a powerful journal in her hands, with wealth at her command, with faith “to remove mountains,” with an intellect and inspiration to teach philosophers and statesmen, and a consecrated eloquence to enchain the hearing of the people, she assumed the service of the Spiritualists of America and the world.… She might have shunned unpopularity by refusing to become identified as a Spiritualist in so public a manner.46
The Banner also printed a spirited defense of Woodhull by trance speaker Laura Cuppy Smith, who said that “social reform is hazardous work, and we want no cowards. We are ready to walk through martyrdom, if need be, for this holy cause.”
Lois Waisbrooker agreed: as she explained in her regular column, men and women were answerable only to the Spirits, or to what she called the “court” of science, for their actions. Spiritualists ran the danger of becoming “as tyrannical as any other class of people” if they succumbed to the scruples of the “respectable;” it was not a movement for those who shrank from conflict. “When they come to feel the spirit of the above, they will not shrink from the discussion of any question,” said Waisbrooker. “If they can’t stand the fire, then let them go.”47 Spiritualism gave Woodhull an irrefutable defense for her controversial actions. The faith of its adherents in Spirit guidance was both a strength and weakness for the movement: it allowed widely dispersed individuals to take part in a collective identity based on a phenomenon—Spirit manifestation and control—that was not easily verified. Woodhull benefited from this uncertainty; the unruly guidance of the Spirit world, she insisted, dictated all of her uncompromising positions on social issues. She was merely the instrument of a higher cause:
I have no personal cause to maintain. I propose to obey, so far as in me lies, a guidance superior to my own knowledge; and that guidance commands me to speak, and I speak. I cannot yield my allegiance to it; and if its mandates carry me where Spiritualists cannot follow, let them not say that I desire to commit them to anything but the truth.48
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