Free Love On Trial
Preacher Henry Ward Beecher had done as much as his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, to bring abolitionist ideas into the mainstream of American thought. His sermons, published in the leading papers of the day, reached far beyond his Brooklyn church. Among his unconventional ideas was that of a God of love rather than vengeance. But the notion of "free love" went too far, and he refused to associate with Victoria Woodhull, who was the leading advocate of the idea. When she heard about the married Beecher's love affair with a married parishioner, she expressed outrage at his hypocrisy by writing about it in her paper. When the cuckolded husband started legal proceedings, the trial was a national sensation.
Beecher's trial ended in a hung jury. Woodhull was punished more: she was jailed on an obscenity charge for writing about the affair.
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