Books

[Suffrage] [Feminism] Claflin, Tennie C. Constitutional Equality: A Right of Woman; A Consideration of the Various Relations which She Sustains as a Necessary Part of the Body of Society and Humanity; With Her Duties to Herself - Together with a Review of the Constitution of the United States, Showing that the Right to Vote is Guaranteed to All Citizens. Also a Review of the Rights of Children. New York: Woodhull, Claflin & Co., 1871. First edition. 148 pages. 8vo. Original maroon boards with abbreviated title stamped in gilt on front, spine rebound. Tennessee Celeste Claflin was an American businesswoman and outspoken feminist known for her work in the American suffrage movement and for opening the first female owned Wall Street brokerage firm with her sister Victoria Woodhull in 1870. Claflin and Woodhull became an overnight success in the financial sector by catering to independently wealthy women and used their funds to open a publishing house which printed the radical newspaper Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, as well as political writings by both sisters. Woodhull and Claflin advocated for controversial progressive ideals including suffrage, free love, and socialism. Their newspaper was the first in the United States to print the Communist Manifesto. Both sisters attempted to vote in 1871, fifty years before women's suffrage was ratified in 1920. Claflin ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1871 and made a bid for colonel of the Ninth Regiment of the New York National Guard in 1872. Though she was initially rebuffed from both seats, Claflin ran again for colonel of the all-Black Eighty-Fifth Regiment and was elected. In the introduction to her manifesto, which Claflin published at age 27, she writes "It does not do in these times to stifle a new evolution of civilization by treating it with contempt. There too many intelligent, unbiased minds now existing to allow this step to be utterly ignored, as has been proposed by those who oppose it. It will be obvious to the careful reader that the series of papers which are now offered have been prepared with the view of radially leading the mind to acknowledge that women are something more than 'things;' that they are thinking, reasoning, even accountable beings, and as capable of self-government as most men are. . We know there is a great amount of prejudice against women voting, in both sexes; but we also know that it is simply prejudice -- the same prejudice which all new developments of thought and science are always met by and that it only requires to be met by a persistent presentation of the realities of the question to in time divest the people of it." In the book, Claflin lays out an analytical and well reasoned argument for women's suffrage as a right under the U.S. Constitution. Boards exhibit staining and light wear at edges. Some separation of front end pages from front inner hinge. Foxing to inner pages but textblock is overall clear and adhering tightly. Overall good condition. An early feminist manifesto by radical social advocate and suffragette Tennessee Claflin.

Constitutional Equality: A Right of Woman is an influential book advocating for women's rights and gender equality.