LETTER: to J. Elmer Christie.
Lockwood on Her 1884 Run For the Presidency
Lockwood, Belva Ann. Autograph letter signed, “Belva A. Lockwood,” to J. Elmer Christie, February 13, 1906; two leaves of her law firm letterhead, rectos only.
Noted women’s rights activist and lawyer Lockwood responds to a request for information regarding her historic 1884 run for the Presidency as the candidate for the National Equal Rights Party. In full:
Dear Sir,
Your favor of Feb. 5th about the Equal Rights Party, and my candidacy for the Presidency is before me. I think that only one authentic account of it that has ever been written and that was by a Mr. Smith of the Document Room of the House of Representatives, in small work entitled I think “Presidential Campaigns”. Mr. Smith promised to send me a copy of his work when issued, but neglected to do so, and I have failed to secure a copy. If it was copyrighted as I should think it would have been, there must be 2 copies in the Congressional Library. This was three or four years ago, and I think Mr. Smith died on a trip to Europe about 2 years ago. This information may not be correct. I enclose you one of the old campaign cards showing the date and place of nomination, a copy of the Electoral Ticket for New York, and under another cover, our organ for the campaign published in San Francisco. It gives the platform of the party, and many of the preliminaries which may interest you at this time. We polled several thousand votes in N.Y. secured the whole electoral ticket of Oregon and one half that of Indiana, and filed a petition in Congress, asking to be recognized in the Electoral College.
Yours Truly, Belva A. Lockwood
Belva Ann Lockwood (1830-1917) continued in her right to education despite initially being denied admittance to a number of American law schools when she first applied at the age of 40. Eventually, she was accepted at the new National University Law School (which later became part of George Washington University) and began practicing law in Washington D.C. in 1873 amid the protests of her male peers, who argued that they would not graduate with a woman.
Three years later, in 1876, “when the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court refused to admit her to its bar, stating, ‘none but men are permitted to practice before [us] as attorneys and counselors,’ Lockwood single-handedly lobbied Congress until that body passed ‘An Act to relieve certain legal disabilities of women’” (“Belva Lockwood: Blazing the Trail for Women in Law,” by Jill Norgren, Prologue. Spring 2005, Vol. 37, No. 1). In 1879, she became the first woman admitted to the Supreme Court bar.
In 1884 Lockwood was the first woman to run for the U.S. Presidency, in an unsought nomination which “startled the country and vexed other suffrage leaders:”
She believed that her bid for the presidency would help women gain the right to vote and to be accepted into partisan politics. She could not vote, she told reporters, but nothing in the Constitution prevented men from voting for her. She outlined a 12-point platform, later refined and presented as 15 positions on a broad range of policy issues including foreign affairs, tariffs, equal political rights, civil service reform, judicial appointments, Native Americans, protection of public lands, temperance, pensions, and the federalization of family law. (Norgren)
Lockwood went on to win less than 5,000 votes, but answered by running a second time, in 1888, remaining optimistic, saying, “After all, equality of rights and privileges is but simple justice.”
(#13363)
Print Inquire
