In 1972, the Libertarian Party nominated University of Southern California philosophy Prof. John Hospers as its first presidential candidate and ran Tonie Nathan for vice president. When Roger MacBride, a Virginia Republican elector pledged to Richard Nixon, voted instead for Hospers-Nathan, he cast the first electoral vote in American history for a woman. The Libertarian Party was off and running. In 1976, it nominated the renegade elector as its presidential candidate.

As a...