LETTER: Autograph letter signed, 21 pages, on her presidential nomination.
Belva Ann Lockwood
on her Presidential nomination:
“The desire of the nominees was to find
a woman brave enough to meet the ordeal”
Lockwood, Belva Ann. Autograph Letter Signed “Belva A. Lockwood” to “Wm J. Bok Esq.” Washington D.C. 01/12/1888; 21 pages; 5 ¾ x 9 ½ -inch loose tan leaves; rectos only; hand-paginated; paperclip indentation at head; occasional mild soiling and minor edgewear; creased where folded to mail.
Belva Lockwood (1830-1917), an American lawyer who was the first woman to run for United States President (nominated by the National Equal Rights party in 1884), writes a lengthy letter in response to one of “[William] J. Bok,” in which she addresses both her Presidential nomination and her view on Utah’s admittance to the United States following controversy over the state’s Mormon and polygamist roots.
On her own views on feeling qualified for and accepting the nomination of Presidency, Lockwood writes:
In my opinion it is not the province of any well organized American citizen…to look forward to, or expect any office or emolument in the gift of the people…even if such a nomination were to be a walk over. When there comes a pressing demand from the sovereign people…there is usually time enough for that individual to consider the advisability or non-advisability of its acceptance.
On the reasoning behind the nomination, Lockwood continues, elaborating that the very nomination of a woman for a political office spurred conversation at all levels about women’s roles:
When my nomination for President of the Republic was made by the National Equal Rights Party in 1884, it was not from any fanatical zeal, or lack of knowledge of the real political situation of the country on the part of the nominees; but to test the Constitutional right of a woman to be nominated and elected to that supreme office. The desire of the nominees was to find a woman brave enough to meet the ordeal…The test was made, and the legal and political aspect of the woman question [was] discussed not only by pulpit, press and forum, but in every palace and hovel from the ‘Hub’ to the ‘Golden Gate’ and from the ‘Lakes’ to the ‘Gulf.’ It may have been the amusing side of the campaign, but it was an educator and civilizer, and a dense forest of ignorance has been blazed for a coming woman President. I am not anxious to know at this stage who that woman will be, but believe it not only possibly but probably in the future of this country.
Lockwood changes topics to discuss the state of Utah and specifically “The Mormon Question,” which she calls “a romance in real life more interesting than the often far fetched conceit of the novelist.” In the 1870s and 1880s, laws were passed that tightened the rules under which the Mormon Church was allowed to operate. Lockwood cites that the Mormons “bore it [the restrictions] all uncomplainingly; took up their own burden of work, banded themselves together for protection, sang and prayed together, believing that out of trials would come blessings, even as blessings had come in the early days…” On the government’s actions, Lockwood warns, “The government has initiated the typical guardian in this instance, and the proceeds of the trust have been virtually confiscated…if the government can do this with the Mormon Church, it will not take any greater stretch of authority to confiscate in the same way the property of the Catholic Church, the Joss House of the Chinaman, or the magnificent edifices of the Methodists.”
Lockwood continues with a brief history of Utah, diving in to discuss polygamy and the “war of extermination,” that societally married Mormonism and polygamy, noting “not more than five percent of the whole number of the Mormon people were ever practical polygamists. But this small number sufficed to throw the Territory in to such disrepute that the whole Christian world threw up its hands in holy horror, until as a rule no Christian man or woman believed that he or
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