By what right do you refuse to accept the vote of a citizen of the United States?
— Victoria Woodhull
I and others of my sex find ourselves controlled by a form of government in the inauguration of which we had no voice.
I do not shake hands from a sanitary standpoint.
I shall not change my course because those who assume to be better than I desire it.
If women would today would rise en masse and demand their emancipation, the men would be compelled to grant it.
Let women issue a declaration of independence sexually, and absolutely refuse to cohabit with men until they are acknowledged as equals in everything, and the victory would be won in a single week.
Rude contact with facts chased my visions and dreams quickly away, and in their stead I beheld the horrors, the corruption, the evils and hypocrisy of society, and as I stood among them, a young wife, a great wail of agony went out from my soul.
To go behind a man's hall-door is mean, cowardly, unfair opposition.
Women have no government.
Why is a woman to be treated differently? Woman suffrage will succeed, despite this miserable guerilla opposition.
Denounce me for advocating freedom if you can, and I will bear your curse with a better resignation.
I ask the rights to pursue happiness by having a voice in that government to which I am accountable.
I endeavor to make the most of everything.
I would like above any other place to go to Hartford. I want to face the conservatism there centered and compel it into decency.
Is it fair to treat a woman worse than a man, and then revile her because she is a woman?
My judges preach against free love openly, practice it secretly.
Suffrage is a common right of citizenship. Women have the right of suffrage. Logically it cannot be escaped.
When I found I had given birth to a human wreckage, to a child that was an imbecile, my heart was broken.
I am a free lover. I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please.
For a woman to consider a financial question was shuddered over as a profanity.
I come before you to declare that my sex are entitled to the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I now announce myself as candidate for the Presidency. I anticipate criticism; but however unfavorable I trust that my sincerity will not be called into question.
If Congress refuse to listen to and grant what women ask, there is but one course left then to pursue. What is there left for women to do but to become the mothers of the future government?
It makes no difference who or what you are, old or young, black or white, pagan, Jew, or Christian, I want to love you all and be loved by you all, and I mean to have your love.
My opinions and principles are subjects of just criticism. I put myself before the public voluntarily.
The women of the country have the power in their own hands, in spite of the law and the government being altogether of the male order.
Woman, no less than man, can qualify herself for the more onerous occupations of life.
While others prayed for the good time coming, I worked for it.
