The regular anniversary meeting of the National Association was to

begin in New York on May 9, and on the 6th Miss Anthony reached the

city to prevent, if possible, the threatened coalition with the

proposed new party. She engaged the parlors of the Westmoreland Hotel

for headquarters and then hastened over to Tenafly to get Mrs. Stanton.

As soon as the suffrage committee opened its business session, Mrs.

Woodhull and her friends appeared by previous arrangement made during

Miss Anthony's absence in the West, and announced that they would hold

joint sessions with the suffrage convention the next two days at

Steinway Hall. It was only by Miss Anthony's firm stand and indomitable

will that this was averted, and that the set of resolutions which they

brought, cut and dried, was defeated in the committee. She positively

refused to allow them the use of Steinway Hall, which had been rented

in her name, and at length they were compelled to give up the game and

engage Apollo Hall for their "new party" convention. Mrs. Stanton and

Mrs. Hooker called her narrow, bigoted and headstrong, but the

proceedings of the "people's convention" next day, which nominated Mrs.

Woodhull for President, showed how suicidal it would have been to have

had it under the auspices of the National Suffrage Association.

The forces of the latter, however, were greatly demoralized, the

attendance at the convention was small, and Mrs. Stanton refused to

serve longer as president. Miss Anthony was elected in her stead and,

just as she was about to adjourn the first evening session, to her

amazement Mrs. Woodhull came gliding in from the side of the platform

and moved that "this convention adjourn to meet tomorrow morning at

Apollo Hall!" An ally in the audience seconded the motion, Miss Anthony

refused to put it, an appeal was made from the decision of the chair,

Mrs. Woodhull herself put the motion and it was carried overwhelmingly.

Miss Anthony declared the whole proceeding out of order, as the one

making the motion, the second, and the vast majority of those voting

were not members of the association. She adjourned the convention to

meet in the same place the next morning and, as Mrs. Woodhull persisted

in talking, ordered the janitor to turn off the gas.

The next day, almost without assistance and deserted by those who

should have stood by her, she went through with the remaining three

sessions and brought the convention to a close. In her diary that

evening is written: "A sad day for me; all came near being lost. Our

ship was so nearly stranded by leaving the helm to others, that we

rescued it only by a hair's breadth." She stopped at Lydia Mott's and

then at Martha Wright's for comfort and sympathy, finding them in

abundant measure, and reached home strengthened and refreshed, ready

again to take up the work.

At the request of many suffrage advocates, Miss Anthony and Laura De

Force Gordon went to the National Liberal Convention, at Cincinnati,

May 2, 1872, with a resolution asking that as liberal Republicans they

should hold fast to the principles of the Declaration of Independence

and recognize the right of women to the franchise. The ladies were

politely treated and invited to seats on the platform, but were not

allowed to appear before the committee and no attention was paid to

their resolution. They expected no favors from the presiding officer,

Carl Schurz, the foreign born, always a bitter opponent of woman

suffrage, but they had hoped for assistance from B. Gratz Brown, George

W. Julian, Theodore Tilton and other leading spirits of the meeting,

who had been open and avowed friends; but it was the old, old

story--political exigency required that women must be sacrificed, and

this so-called Liberal convention was no more liberal on this subject

than all which had preceded it. Miss Anthony is quoted in an interview

as saying:

You see our cause is just where the anti-slavery cause was for a

long time. It had plenty of friends and supporters three years out

of four, but every fourth year, when a President was to be elected,

it was lost sight of; then the nation was to be saved and the slave

must be sacrificed. So it is with us women. Politicians are willing

to use us at their gatherings to fill empty seats, to wave our

handkerchiefs and clap our hands when they say smart things; but

when we ask to be allowed to help them in any substantial way, by

assisting them to choose the best men for our law-makers and

rulers, they push us aside and tell us not to bother them.

On June 7 Miss Anthony and other prominent suffrage leaders attended

the National Republican Convention, at Philadelphia, which adopted the

following compromise:

The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal

women of America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom;

their admission to wider fields of usefulness is received with

satisfaction; and the honest demands of any class of citizens for

equal rights should be treated with respectful consideration.

At the close of this meeting, the faithful Sarah Pugh slipped $20 into

Miss Anthony's hand, telling her to go and confer with Mrs. Stanton.

She did so and they prepared a strong letter for the New York World,

calling upon the Democrats at Baltimore to adopt a woman suffrage plank

if they did not wish to compel the women of the country to work for the

success of the Republican ticket. Immediately after the Philadelphia

convention, Henry B. Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal, wrote

Miss Anthony:

I have given my views to Mrs. Stanton as to the wisdom of

concentrating the woman suffragists in support of the Republican

candidates and platform. I think if this is done earnestly,

heartily and unselfishly, upon the ground of anti-slavery principle

and of progressive tendencies, a strong and general reaction will

set in and that, instead of "recognition," as in 1872, we shall

have endorsement and victory in 1876.... I believe you love the

cause better than yourself. I hope that you will see the wisdom of

accepting the resolution in the friendly, generous spirit of the

convention and, by accepting it, making it mean what we desire it

should, which we can do if we will.

To this she replied on June 14:

Your note is here. My view of our true position is to hold

ourselves as a balance of power, "to give aid and comfort," as the

Springfield Republican says, to the party which shall inscribe on

its banners "Freedom to Woman." If I am a Republican or Liberal or

Democrat per se and work for the party right or wrong, then I make

of myself and my co-workers no added power for or against the one

which adopts or rejects our claim for recognition.

I do not expect any _man_ to see and act with me here, but I do not

understand how any _woman_ can do otherwise than refuse to accept

any party which ignores her sex. I will not work with a party today

on the war issues or because it was true to them in the olden time;

but I will work with the one which accepts the living, vital issue

of today--freedom to woman--and I scarcely have a hope that

Baltimore will step ahead of Philadelphia in her platform. Grant's

recognition of citizens' rights evidently _means_ to include women,

and Wilson's letter openly and boldly declares the new mission of

Republicanism. I, therefore, now expect to take the field--the

stump, if you please to call it so--for the Republican party, but

not because of any of its nineteen planks save the fourteenth,

which makes mention of woman, although faintly. It is "the promise

of things not seen," hence I shall clutch it as the drowning man

the floating straw, and cling to it until something stronger and

surer shall present itself. It is a great step to get this first

recognition; it carries the discussion of our question legitimately

into every school district and every ward meeting of the

presidential canvass. It is what my soul has waited for these seven

years. From this we shall go rapidly onward.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Hooker attended the National Democratic

Convention at Baltimore, July 9. The latter some time before had

repudiated her life-long allegiance to the Republican party, because of

its treatment of woman's claims, and had declared her belief that their

only chance was with the Democrats. The Baltimore Sun thus describes an

interview in the corridor between the Hon. James R. Doolittle,

president of the convention, and Miss Anthony and Mrs. Hooker: "Mr.

Doolittle's erect and commanding figure was set off to great advantage

by his elegantly-fitting dress-coat; Mrs. Hooker, tall and erect as the

lord of creation she was bearding, with her abundant tresses of

beautiful gray and her intellectual, sparkling eyes; Miss Anthony, the

peer of both in height, with her gold spectacles set forward on a nose

which would have delighted Napoleon; the two ladies attired in rich

black silk--the attention of the few who lingered was at once attracted

to the picture." But Mr. Doolittle justified his name, as far as

extending any assistance was concerned, and the ladies had not even

seats on the platform.

As an example of the way in which the politicians tried not to do it

and yet seem to sufficiently to secure such small influence as the

women might possess, may be quoted a letter from Hon. John Cochran, of

New York City, to Mrs. Stanton, his cousin: "I think Baltimore should

speak on the subject. I am sorry Cincinnati did not. Any baby could say

that fourteenth formula in the Philadelphia platform; but I would say

something more if I said anything at all. Come, see if you can rig up

this shaky plank and give something not quite suffrage, but so like it

that all the female Sampsons will vote that it is good." The Baltimore

convention, however, could not be induced to adopt even a rickety plank

which might fool the women. Miss Anthony writes in her diary: "The

Democrats have swallowed Cincinnati, hoofs, horns and all. No hope for

women here."

While the Republican plank was unsatisfactory, it was the first time

Woman ever had been mentioned in a national platform and so many

glittering hopes were held out by the Republican leaders that the

officers of the National Association felt justified in giving their

influence to this party. They were the more willing to do this as

General Grant, the nominee, had been the first President to appoint

women postmasters and was known to be friendly to their claim for equal

opportunities, and as Henry Wilson, candidate for Vice-President, was

an avowed advocate of woman suffrage. Therefore, Miss Anthony,

president, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, chairman of the executive

committee, on July 19 sent out a ringing address which began:

Women of the United States, the hour for political action has come.

For the first time in the history of our country, woman has been

recognized in the platform of a large and dominant party.

Philadelphia has spoken and woman is no longer ignored. She is now

officially recognized as a part of the body politic.... We are told

that the plank does not say much, that in fact it is only a

"splinter;" and our Liberal friends warn us not to rely upon it as

a promise of the ballot to women. What it is, we know even better

than others. We recognize its meagerness; we see in it the timidity

of politicians; but beyond and through all, we see a promise of the

future. It is the thin side of the entering wedge which shall break

woman's slavery in pieces and make us at last a nation truly

free--a nation in which the caste of sex shall fall down by the

caste of color, and humanity alone be the criterion of all human

rights. The Republican has been the party of ideas; of progress.

Under its leadership, the nation came safely through the fiery

ordeal of the rebellion; under it slavery was destroyed; under it

manhood suffrage was established. The women of the country have

long looked to it in hope, and not in vain; for today we are

launched by it into the political arena, and the Republican party

must hereafter fight our battles for us. This great, this

progressive party, having taken the initiative step, will never go

back on its record.

In July Miss Anthony, continuing the correspondence with Mr. Blackwell,

wrote:

Letters are pouring in upon me because of my announcement that I

shall work for the Republican party, second only in numbers and

regret to those of 1868--because of my accepting Train's words,

works and cash, given me to push on the cause of woman suffrage as

best I knew. It is marvelous that the friends can not see what a

gain it is to have the question of woman's claims introduced into

politics. It is the hour I have longed and worked for with might

and main because I have seen that so soon as we could get this, the

editors and orators of both parties must of necessity discuss the

subject pro and con, and of course the party which introduced it

favorably into politics, must be the one to give the reasons for so

doing.

As I endured the growling when I was charged with giving too much

"aid and comfort" to the Democracy, because I thanked them for what

they did to agitate our demand in Congress and out, I think I shall

be equal to the fire now for affiliating with the Republicans. You

did me the grossest injustice in the Woman's Journal, when you

called me a "woman suffrage Democrat," just as gross as the

Liberals will be likely to do, when they shall call me a "woman

suffrage Republican." I belong to neither party, and approve of one

or the other only as it shall speak and work for the

enfranchisement of woman. Had Cincinnati declared for woman, and

Philadelphia not, I should have worked with might and main for the

Liberals. All I know or care of parties now and until women are

free, is "woman and her disfranchised--crucified!"

It is most touching to observe Miss Anthony's joy over this

quasi-recognition on the part of Republicans, the more especially at

the beginning of the campaign. In her journal of July 26 she says: "It

is so strange that all can not see the immense gain to us to have the

party in power commit itself to a respectful treatment of our claims.

Already the tone of the entire Republican press is elevated. It is

wonderful to see the change. None but the Liberals deride us now, and

Theodore Tilton stands at their head in light and scurrilous

treatment." To her old friend Mrs. Bloomer, she sent this rallying cry:

"Ho for the battle now! The lines are clearly drawn.... Slight as is

the Republicans' mention of our claim in their plank, it surely is

vastly more and better than the disrespect of no mention at all by the

Democrats, coupled with the fact that their nominee, Mr. Greeley, is an

out-and-out opponent of our movement, and does not now refrain from

saying to earnest suffrage women that he 'neither desires our help nor

believes we are capable of giving any.'"

To Mrs. Stanton she wrote: "The Democrats have now abandoned their old

dogmas and accepted those of the Republicans, while the latter have

stepped up higher to labor reform and woman suffrage. Forney's

editorial in the Philadelphia Press of July 11 states positively that

the woman suffrage cause is espoused by the Republican party. I tell

you the Fort Sumter gun of our war is fired, and we will go on to

victory almost without a repulse from this date." But Mrs. Stanton

could not share in her optimism, and replied: "I do not feel jubilant

over the situation; in fact I never was so blue in my life. You and Mr.

Blackwell write most enthusiastically, and I try to feel so and to see

that the 'Philadelphia splinter' is something. Between nothing and

that, there is no choice, and we must accept it. With my natural pride

of character, it makes me feel intensely bitter to have my rights

discussed by popinjay priests and politicians, to have woman's work in

church and State decided by striplings of twenty-one, and the press of

the country in a broad grin because, forsooth, some American matrons

choose to attend a political convention. Now do I know how Robert

Purvis feels when these 'white mules' turn round their long left ears

at him. But let the Democrats and Liberals do what they may, the cat

will mew, the dog will have his day. Dear friend, you ask me what I

see. I am under a cloud and see nothing."

Under date of August 19, Henry Wilson wrote Miss Anthony: "Your

cheerful and cheering note came to me in Indiana. In great haste I can

only say that I like its spirit, believe in its doctrines, and will

call the attention of the Republican committees, both national and New

York, to your suggestions, and trust and believe that much good may

result from carrying into effect its suggestions."

On July 16 Miss Anthony had received a telegram from Washington to come

at once for a conference with the Republican committee. Her sister and

mother were very ill and she would not leave them, even for such a

summons. On the 24th another telegram came, but it was not until the

29th that she felt safe in leaving the invalids. When she reached

Washington, the chairman of the committee said: "At the time we sent

our first telegram we were panic-stricken and had you come then, you

might have had what you pleased to carry out your plan of work among

the women; but now the crisis has passed and we feel confident of

success; nevertheless, we will be glad of your co-operation." He gave

her a check of $500, to which the New York committee added $500 more,

to hold meetings in that State.

[Autograph: Henry Wilson]

The same change of feeling was noticeable in the press. Immediately

after the Baltimore convention, when it looked as if Greeley might be

elected, the Republican newspapers were filled with appeals to the

women, and the plank was magnified to suit any interpretation they

might choose, but as the campaign progressed and the danger passed, it

was almost wholly ignored by both press and platform. The Republicans

did, however, employ a number of women speakers during the campaign,

but Miss Anthony received no money except this $1,000, all of which she

expended in public meetings. The first was at Rochester, September 20,

and, the daily papers said, "far surpassed any rally held during the

season." Mayor Carter Wilder presided, and the speakers were Mrs.

Stanton, Mrs. Gage and Rev. Olympia Brown. The series closed with a

tremendous meeting at Cooper Institute, Hon. Luther R. Marsh presiding,

and Peter Cooper, Edmund Yates and a number of other prominent men on

the stage. Henry Ward Beecher had agreed to preside and to speak at

this meeting, but at the last moment was called away.

Miss Anthony was considerably at variance with some of the Republican

politicians, however, because she and her associates, through all the

campaign, persisted in speaking on the woman's plank in the platform

and advocating equal suffrage, instead of ignoring these points, as the

men speakers did, and making the fight on the other issues of the

party. Her position is best stated in one of her own letters to Mrs.

Stanton early in the autumn:

If you are ready to go forth into this canvass saying that you

endorse the party on any other point or for any other cause than

that of its recognition of woman's claim to vote, _I_ am not and I

shall not thus go. To the contrary, I shall work for the Republican

party and call on all women to join me, precisely as we thanked the

Democrats of Wyoming and Kansas, and Hon. James Brooks and Senator

Cowan, viz: for what that party has done and promises to do for

woman, nothing more, nothing less.

Then again, I shall not join with the Republicans in hounding

Greeley and the Liberals with all the old war anathemas of the

Democracy. Greeley and all the Liberals are just as good and true

Republicans as ever; and the fact that old pro-slavery men propose

to vote for him no more makes him pro-slavery than the drunkards'

or rum-sellers' vote for him makes him a friend and advocate of the

liquor traffic. My sense of justice and truth is outraged by the

Harpers' cartoons of Greeley and the general falsifying tone of the

Republican press. It is not fair for us to join in the cry that

everybody who is opposed to the present administration is either a

Democrat or an apostate.

I shall try to be "careful and not captious," as you suggest, but

more than all, I shall try not to run myself or my cause into the

slough of political schemes or schemers. And I pray you, be prudent

and conscientious, and do not surrender one iota of true principle

or of our philosophy of reform to aid mere Republican partisanship.

Miss Anthony never has abandoned this position and the leading

advocates of woman suffrage stand with her squarely upon the ground

that no party, whatever its principles, shall have their sanction and

advocacy until it shall make an unequivocal declaration in favor of the

enfranchisement of women and support this by means of the party press

and platform.

There was a desire on the part of many women to test the right to vote

which they claimed was conferred on them by the Fourteenth Amendment,

and in 1872 a number in different places attempted to cast their

ballots at the November election. A few were accepted by the

inspectors, but most of them were refused. On Friday morning, November

1, Miss Anthony read, at the head of the editorial columns of the

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the following strong plea:

Now register! Today and tomorrow are the only remaining

opportunities. If you were not permitted to vote, you would fight

for the right, undergo all privations for it, face death for it.

You have it now at the cost of five minutes' time to be spent in

seeking your place of registration and having your name entered.

And yet, on election day, less than a week hence, hundreds of you

are likely to lose your votes because you have not thought it worth

while to give the five minutes. Today and tomorrow are your only

opportunities. Register now!

There was nothing to indicate that this appeal was made to men only, it

said plainly that suffrage was a right for which one would fight and

face death, and that it could be had at the cost of five minutes' time.

She was a loyal American citizen, had just conducted a political

campaign, was thoroughly conversant with the issues and vitally

interested in the results of the election, and certainly competent to

vote. She summoned her three faithful sisters and going to the registry

office of the Eighth ward (in a barber's shop) they asked to be

registered. There was some hesitation, but Miss Anthony read the

Fourteenth Amendment and the article in the State constitution in

regard to taking the oath, which made no sex-qualification, and at

length their names were duly entered by the inspectors, Beverly W.

Jones and Edwin F. Marsh, Republicans; William B. Hall, Democrat,

objecting. Miss Anthony then called upon several other women in her

ward, urging them to follow her example, and in all fifteen registered.

The evening papers noted this fact and the next day enough women in

other wards followed their example to bring the number up to fifty.

The Rochester Express and the Democrat and Chronicle (Republican) noted

the circumstance, expressing no opinion, but the Union and Advertiser

(Democratic) denounced the proceeding and declared that "if the votes

of these women were received the inspectors should be prosecuted to the

full extent of the law." This attack was kept up till the day of

election, November 5, with the result of so terrorizing the inspectors

that all refused to accept the votes of the women who had registered

except those in the Eighth ward where the ballots of the fifteen[65]

were received.

In a letter to Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony says: "Well, I have been and

gone and done it, positively voted this morning at 7 o'clock, and swore

my vote in at that. Not a jeer, not a rude word, not a disrespectful

look has met one woman. Now if all our suffrage women would work to

this end of enforcing the constitutional supremacy of National over

State law, what strides we might make from now on; but oh, I'm so

tired! I've been on the go constantly for five days, but to good

purpose, so all right. I hope you too voted."

The news of the acceptance of these votes was sent by the Associated

Press to all parts of the country and created great interest and

excitement. There was scarcely a newspaper in the United States which

did not contain from one to a dozen editorial comments. Some of these

were flippant or abusive, most of them non-committal but respectful,

and many earnest, dignified and commendatory;[66] a few, notably the

New York Graphic, contained outrageous cartoons.

Immediately after registering Miss Anthony had gone to a number of the

leading lawyers in Rochester for advice as to her right to vote on the

following Tuesday, but none of them would consider her case. Finally

she entered the office of Henry R. Selden, a leading member of the bar

and formerly judge of the court of appeals. He listened to her

attentively, took the mass of documents which she had brought with

her--Benjamin F. Butler's minority report, Francis Minor's resolutions,

Judge Riddle's speech made in Washington in a similar case the year

previous, various Supreme Court decisions, an incontrovertible array of

argument--and told her he would give her an answer on Monday. She

called then and he said: "My brother Samuel and I have spent an entire

day in examining these papers and we believe that your claim to a right

to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment is valid. I will protect you in

that right to the best of my ability."

Armed with this authority she cast her vote the next day, and advised

the other women to do the same. As the inspectors hesitated to receive

the votes, Miss Anthony assured them that should they be prosecuted she

herself would bear all the expenses of the suit. They had been advised

not to register the women by Silas J. Wagner, Republican supervisor.

All three of the inspectors and also a bystander declared under oath

that Daniel J. Warner, the Democratic supervisor, had advised them to

register the names of the women; but on election day this same man

attempted to challenge their votes. This, however, already had been

done by one Sylvester Lewis, who testified later that he acted for the

Democratic central committee. The general belief that these ladies

voted the Republican ticket may have influenced this action.

About two weeks after election, Monday, November 18, Miss Anthony

received a call from Deputy United States Marshal E.J. Keeney who, amid

many blushes and much hesitation and stammering, announced that it was

his unpleasant duty to arrest her. "Is this your usual method of

serving a warrant?" she calmly inquired. The marshal, thus encouraged,

produced the necessary legal document.[67] As she wished to make some

change in her dress, he told her she could come down alone to the

commissioner's office, but she refused to take herself to court, so he

waited until she was ready and then declined her suggestion that he put

handcuffs on her. She had intended to have suit brought against those

inspectors who refused to register the women, but it never had occurred

to her that those who voted would themselves be arrested.

Under date of November 27, Judge Selden wrote her: "I suppose the

commissioner will, as a matter of course, hold you for trial at the

circuit court, _whatever your rights may be in the matter._ In my

opinion, the idea that you can be charged with a _crime_ on account of

voting, or offering to vote, when you honestly believed yourself

entitled to vote, is simply preposterous, whether your belief _were

right or wrong_. However, the learned gentlemen engaged in this

movement seem to suppose they can make a crime out of your honest

deposit of your ballot, and _perhaps_ they can find a respectable court

or jury that will be of their opinion. If they do so I shall be greatly

disappointed."

Miss Anthony and the fourteen other ladies who voted, went before U. S.

Commissioner Storrs, U. S. District-Attorney Crowley and Assistant U.

S. District-Attorney Pond, and were ordered to appear for examination

Friday, November 29. Following is a portion of the examination of Miss

Anthony by the commissioner:

Previous to voting at the 1st district poll in the Eighth ward, did

you take the advice of counsel upon your voting?--Yes, sir.--Who

was it you talked with?--Judge Henry E. Selden.--What did he advise

you in reference to your legal right to vote?--He said it was the

only way to find out what the law was upon the subject--to bring it

to a test case.--Did he advise you to offer your vote?--Yes,

sir.--State whether or not, prior to such advice, you had retained

Mr. Selden. No, sir.--Have you anything further to say upon Judge

Selden's advice?--I think it was sound.--Did he give you an opinion

upon the subject?--He was like the rest of you lawyers--he had not

studied the question.--What did he advise you?--He left me with

this opinion: That he was a conscientious man; that he would

thoroughly study the subject of woman's right to vote and decide

according to the law.--Did you have any doubt yourself of your

right to vote?--Not a particle.

Cross-examination--Would you not have made the same efforts to vote

that you did, if you had not consulted with Judge Selden?--Yes,

sir.--Were you influenced in the matter by his advice at all?--No,

sir.--You went into this matter for the purpose of testing the

question?--Yes, sir; I had been resolved for three years to vote at

the first election when I had been at home for thirty days before.

It is an incident worthy of note that this examination took place and

the commissioner's decision was rendered in the same dingy little room

where, in the olden days, fugitive slaves were examined and returned to

their masters. While the attorneys were endeavoring to agree upon a

date for the hearing of arguments, Miss Anthony remarked that she

should be engaged lecturing in central Ohio until December 10. "But you

are supposed to be in custody all this time," said the

district-attorney. "Oh, is that so? I had forgotten all about that,"

she replied. That night she wrote in her diary: "A hard day and a sad

anniversary! Ten years ago our dear father was laid to rest. This

evening at 7 o'clock my old friend Horace Greeley died. A giant

intellect suddenly gone out!"

The second hearing took place December 23 in the common council

chamber, in the presence of a large audience which included many

ladies, the newspapers stating that it had rather the appearance of a

social gathering than an arraignment of criminals. Of those on trial

one paper said: "The majority of these law-breakers were elderly,

matronly-looking women with thoughtful faces, just the sort one would

like to see in charge of one's sick-room, considerate, patient,

kindly."

At Judge Selden's request, Hon. John Van Voorhis, one of the ablest

lawyers in Rochester, had been associated with himself for the defense.

Both made strong, logical arguments, and Miss Anthony herself spoke

most earnestly in behalf of the three inspectors, who also had been

arrested. The commissioner held all of them guilty, fixed their bail at

$500 each, and gave them until the following Monday to furnish it. All

did so except Miss Anthony, who refused to give bail and applied for a

writ of habeas corpus from U. S. District-Judge N. K. Hall. The

Rochester Express, which stood nobly by her through this ordeal, said

editorially:

Miss Anthony had a loftier end in view than the making of a

sensation when she registered her name and cast her vote. The act

was in harmony with a life steadily consecrated to a high purpose

from which she has never wavered, though she has met a storm of

invective, personal taunt and false accusation, more than enough to

justify any person less courageous than she in giving up a warfare

securing her only ingratitude and abuse. But Miss Anthony has no

morbid sentiment in her nature. There is at least one woman in the

land--and we believe there are a good many more--who does not whine

others into helping her over a hard spot, or even plead for help,

but bravely helps herself and puts her hand to the plough without

turning back. Those who are now regarding her as practically

condemned to State prison or the payment of a fine of $500, need

not waste their sympathy, for she would suffer either penalty with

heroic cheerfulness if thereby she might help bring about the day

when the principle "no taxation without representation" meant

something more than it does. In writing lately to a friend, she

thus expressed herself:

"Yes, I hope you will be present at the examination, to witness the

grave spectacle of fifteen native born citizens, of sound mind and

not convicted of any crime, arraigned in the United States criminal

courts to answer for the offense of illegal voting, when the United

States Constitution, the supreme law of this land, says, 'All

persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens;

no State shall deny or abridge the privileges or immunities of

citizens;' and 'The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied.'

The one question to be settled is, are personal freedom and

personal representation inherent rights and privileges under

democratic-republican institutions, or are they things of

legislation, precisely as under old monarchical governments, to be

given and taken at the option of a ruling class or of a majority

vote? If the former, then is our country free indeed; if the

latter, then is our country a despotism, and we women its victims!"

Under date of December 12, Benjamin F. Butler, then a member of

Congress, wrote Miss Anthony regarding her case:

I do not believe anybody in Congress doubts that the Constitution

authorizes the right of women to vote, precisely as it authorizes

trial by jury and many other like rights guaranteed to citizens.

But the difficulty is, the courts long since decided that the

constitutional provisions do not act upon the citizens, except as

guarantees, ex proprio vigore, and in order to give practical force

to them there must be legislation. As, for example, in trial by

jury, a man can invoke the Constitution to prevent his being tried,

in a proper case, by any other tribunal than a jury; but if there

is no legislation, congressional or other, to give him a trial by

jury, I think, under the decisions, it would be very difficult to

see how it might be done. Therefore, the point is for the friends

of woman suffrage to get congressional legislation.

[Autograph: Benjamin F. Butler]

The results of the trial showed that General Butler was right in

thinking that further legislation would be required to enable women to

vote under the Constitution of the United States. It proved also that a

judge could set aside the right of a citizen to a trial by jury,

supposed to be guaranteed by every safeguard which could be thrown

around it by this same Constitution.

[Footnote 63: Present, Lyman Trumbull, Illinois, chairman; Roscoe

Conkling, New York; F.F. Frelinghuysen, New Jersey; Matthew H.

Carpenter, Wisconsin.]

[Footnote 64: See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, pp. 499 and 506.]

[Footnote 65: Susan B. Anthony, Mary S. Anthony, Guelma Anthony McLean,

Hannah Anthony Mosher, Rhoda De Garmo, Sarah Truesdale, Mary Pulver,

Lottie B. Anthony, Nancy M. Chapman, Susan M. Hough, Hannah Chatfield,

Margaret Leyden, Mary Culver, Ellen S. Baker, Mary L. Hebard (wife of

the editor of the Express).]

[Footnote 66: When a jurist as eminent as Judge Henry R. Selden

testifies that he told Miss Anthony before election that she had a

right to vote, and this after a careful examination of the question,

the whole subject assumes new importance.... How grateful to Judge

Selden must all the suffragists be! He has struck the strongest and

most promising blow in their behalf that has yet been given. Dred Scott

was the pivot on which the Constitution turned before the war. Miss

Anthony seems likely to occupy a similar position now.--New York

Commercial Advertiser.

The arrest of the fifteen women of Rochester, and the imprisonment of

the renowned Miss Susan B. Anthony, for voting at the November

election, afford a curious illustration of the extent to which the

United States government is stretching its hand in these matters. If

these women violated any law at all by voting, it was clearly a statute

of the State of New York, and that State might safely be left to

vindicate the majesty of its own laws. It is only by an over-strained

stretch of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments that the national

government can force its long finger into the Rochester case at

all.--New York Sun.

Whatever may be said of Susan B. Anthony, there is no doubt but she has

kept the public mind of the country agitated upon the woman's rights

question as few others, male or female, could have done. She has

displayed very superior judgment and has seldom been led into acts of

even seeming impropriety. She has won the respect of all classes by her

ability, her consistency and her spotless character, and she today

stands far in advance of all her co-workers in the estimation of the

people. The fact that she voted at Rochester at the presidential

election has created no little commotion on the part of the press, but

if women are to become voters, who but the one who has taken the lead

in the advocacy of that right should be among the first to cast the

vote?--Toledo Blade.

We pause in the midst of our pressing duties to admire the zeal and

courage which find in the course of these ladies a challenge to battle,

while evils a thousandfold worse, such as bribery, etc., are permitted

to pass unnoticed.... The ladies who voted in this city on the 5th of

this month did so from the conviction that they had a constitutional

right to the ballot. In that they may or may not have been mistaken,

but they certainly can not be justly classed with the ordinary illegal

voter and repeater. The latter always vote for a pecuniary

consideration, knowingly and intentionally violating our laws to get

gain. The former voted for a principle and to assert what, they esteem

a right. The attempt by insinuation to class them among the ordinary

illegal voters will react upon its movers.--Rochester Evening Express.]

[Footnote 67: Complaint has this day been made by ---- on oath before

me, William C. Storrs, commissioner, charging that Susan B. Anthony, on

or about the fifth day of November, 1872, at the city of Rochester, N.

Y., at an election held in the Eighth ward of the city of Rochester

aforesaid, for a representative in the Congress of the United States,

did then and there vote for a representative in the Congress of the

United States, without having a lawful right to vote and in violation

of Section 19 of an act of Congress approved May 31, 1870, entitled "An

act, to enforce the right of citizens of the United States to vote in

the several States of this Union and for other purposes."]

CHAPTER XXV.

TRIAL FOR VOTING UNDER FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.

1873.

In the midst of these harassing circumstances Miss Anthony made the

usual preparations for holding the annual woman suffrage convention in

Washington, January 16 and 17, 1873, and presided over its

deliberations. In her opening speech she said:

There are three methods of extending suffrage to new classes. The

first is for the legislatures of the several States to submit the

question to those already voters. Before the war this was the only

way thought of, and during all those years we petitioned the

legislatures to submit an amendment striking the word "male" from

the suffrage clause of the State constitutions. The second method

is for Congress to submit to the several legislatures a proposition

for a Sixteenth Amendment which shall prohibit the States from

depriving women citizens of their right to vote. The third plan is

for women to take their right under the Fourteenth Amendment of the

National Constitution, which declares that all persons are

citizens, and no State shall deny or abridge the privileges or

immunities of citizens.

Again, there are two ways of securing the right of suffrage under

the Constitution as it is, one by a declaratory act of Congress

instructing the officers of election to receive the votes of women;

the other by bringing suits before the courts, as women already

have done, in order to secure a judicial decision on the broad

interpretation of the Constitution that all persons are citizens,

and all citizens voters. The vaults in yonder Capitol hold the

petitions of 100,000 women for a declaratory act, and the calendars

of our courts show that many are already testing their right to

vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. I stand here under indictment

for having exercised my right as a citizen to vote at the last

election; and by a fiction of the law, I am now in custody and not

a free person on this platform.

Among the forcible resolutions adopted were one asserting "that States

may regulate all local questions of property, taxation, etc., but the

inalienable personal rights of citizenship must be declared by the

Constitution, interpreted by the Supreme Court, protected by Congress,

and enforced by the arm of the Executive;" and another declaring "that

the criminal prosecution of Susan B. Anthony by the United States, for

the alleged crime of exercising the citizen's right of suffrage, is an

act of arbitrary and unconstitutional authority and a blow at the

liberties of every citizen of this nation." Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Stanton,

Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, Rev. Olympia Brown and others made

ringing speeches on the right of women to vote under the Fourteenth

Amendment, defended the course of Miss Anthony and denounced her

arrest. This was the tenor of all the addresses. She was unanimously

elected president for the ensuing year, notwithstanding prison walls

loomed up before her; and then she hastened back to prepare for her

legal battle.

Miss Anthony met her counsel at Albany, and on January 21 Judge Selden

made a masterly argument before U.S. District-Judge N.K. Hall, in

support of her demand for a writ of habeas corpus, and asked the

discharge of the prisoner on the grounds: 1st, That in the act

complained of she discharged a duty or, at all events, exercised a

right, instead of committing a crime; that she had a constitutional and

lawful right to offer her ballot and to have it received and counted;

that she, as well as her brothers, was entitled to express her choice

as to the persons who should make, and those who should execute the

laws, inasmuch as she, as well as they, would be bound to observe them.

2d, That, if she had not that right, she in good faith believed that

she had it and, therefore, her act lacked the indispensable ingredient

of all crime, a corrupt intention.

The judge denied the writ and increased her bail to $1,000. From the

first Miss Anthony had been determined not to recognize the right of

the courts to interfere with her exercise of the franchise, and again

she refused to give bail, insisting that rather than do this she

preferred to go to jail. Judge Selden, however, in kindness of heart,

said there were times when a client must be guided by advice of her

counsel, and himself went on her bond. As she came out of the courtroom

she met her other lawyer, Mr. Van Voorhis, and told him what had been

done. He exclaimed, "You have lost your chance to get your case before

the Supreme Court by writ of habeas corpus!" In her ignorance of legal

forms she had not understood this, and at once she rushed back and

tried to have the bond cancelled, but, to her bitter disappointment,

this was impossible. When she demanded of Judge Selden, "Did you not

know that you had estopped me from carrying my case to the Supreme

Court?" he replied with his old-time courtesy, "Yes, but I could not

see a lady I respected put in jail."

The following day, January 22, the commission then in session at Albany

for the purpose of revising the State Constitution was addressed by

Miss Anthony on woman's right to vote under the Constitution of the

United States. Her attorneys, Selden and Van Voorhis, were present and,

when she finished, the former said to her, "If I had heard this address

first I could have made a far better argument before Judge Hall."

Immediately following the judge's decision, Miss Anthony was indicted

by the grand jury.[68]

During this winter she attended the Ohio and Illinois Suffrage

conventions, and in a number of cities in these States and in Indiana

made her great constitutional argument on the right of women to vote

under the Fourteenth Amendment. Every newspaper in the country took up

the points involved and the interest and agitation were wide-spread.

She spoke at Ft. Wayne on February 25, an intensely cold night. Above

her was an open scuttle, from which a stream of air poured down upon

her head, and when half through her lecture she suddenly became

unconscious. She was the guest of Mrs. Mary Hamilton Williams, and was

taken at once to her home where she received every possible kindness

and attention. As soon as she recovered consciousness she begged that

steps be taken immediately to keep the occurrence from the Associated

Press, as she feared that, on account of her mother's extremely

delicate health, the shock and anxiety would prove fatal. Three nights

later, although not wholly recovered, she spoke to a large audience at

Marion, Ind.; the diary says, "going on the platform with fear and

trembling."

She returned home, and on March 4 cast her ballot at the city election

without any protest. Only two other ladies could be induced to vote,

Mrs. Mary Pulver and Mrs. Mary S. Hebard. All of the others who had

voted in the fall were thoroughly frightened, and their husbands and

other male relatives were even more panic-stricken.

In the midst of her own perplexities Miss Anthony did not forget to

issue the call[69] for the May Anniversary in New York, where she made

an address, detailing the incidents of her arrest and defending her

rights as a citizen. All the speeches and letters of the convention

were deeply sympathetic, and among the resolutions bearing on this

question was one stating that since the underlying principle of our

government is equality of political rights, therefore "the trial of

Susan B. Anthony, though ostensibly involving only the political status

of woman, in reality questions the right of every man to share in the

government; that it is not Susan B. Anthony or the women of the

republic who alone are on trial today, but it is the government of the

United States, and that as the decision is rendered for or against the

political rights of citizenship, so will the men of America find

themselves free or enslaved."

A reception was given by Dr. Clemence Lozier, founder of the Woman's

Homeopathic College of New York, who was always Miss Anthony's faithful

and devoted friend, never shaken in her trust by any storm that raged.

During the darkest days of her paper, The Revolution, when the

generosity of all others had been exhausted, Dr. Lozier gave her $50

every Saturday for many weeks and helped her by so much to bear the

weight of the financial burden. For more than a quarter of a century

her hospitable doors were always ajar for her, and it was to be

expected that, at this crucial moment, she would again express her

loyalty.

Miss Anthony's trial was set for the term of court beginning May 13,

and she decided to make a canvass of Monroe county, not to argue her

own case but in order that the people might be educated upon the

constitutional points involved. Commencing March 11, she spoke in

twenty-nine of the post-office districts. Being informed that

District-Attorney Crowley threatened to move her trial into another

county because she would prejudice the jury, she notified him she would

see that that county also was thoroughly canvassed, and asked him if

she were prejudicing a jury by reading and explaining the Constitution

of the United States.

The speech delivered by Miss Anthony during these weeks was a

masterpiece of clear, strong, logical argument in defense of woman's

right to the ballot which never has been equalled.[70] Her audiences

were large and attentive and public sentiment was thoroughly aroused.

One of the papers gives this description: "Miss Anthony was fashionably

dressed in black silk with demi-train, basque with flowing sleeves,

heavily trimmed in black lace; ruffled white lace undersleeves and a

broad, graceful lace collar; with a gold neck chain and pendant. Her

abundant hair was brushed back and bound in a knot after the fashion of

our grandmothers."

When the time for trial came, true to his promise, District-Attorney

Crowley obtained an order removing the cause to the U.S. Circuit Court

which was held at Canandaigua. This left just twenty-two days and,

calling to her aid Matilda Joslyn Gage, Miss Anthony spoke in

twenty-one places on the question, "Is it a crime for a United States

citizen to vote?" and Mrs. Gage in sixteen on "The United States on

trial, not Susan B. Anthony." Their last meeting was held in

Canandaigua the evening before the trial, and resolutions against this

injustice toward woman were heartily endorsed by the audience. The

Rochester Union and Advertiser condemned her in unmeasured terms,

having editorials similar to this:

SUSAN B. ANTHONY AS A CORRUPTIONIST.--We give in another column

today, from a legal friend, a communication which shows very

clearly that Miss Anthony is engaged in a work that will be likely

to bring her to grief. It is nothing more nor less than an attempt

to corrupt the source of that justice under law which flows from

trial by jury. Miss Anthony's case has passed from its gayest to

its gravest character. United States courts are not stages for the

enactment of comedy or farce, and the promptness and decision of

their judges in sentencing to prison culprits convicted before them

show that they are no respecters of persons.

Many influential newspapers, however, spoke in the highest terms of her

courage and ability and the justice of her cause.[71]

The trial[72] opened the afternoon of June 17, at the lovely village of

Canandaigua, Associate-Justice Ward Hunt on the bench, U.S.

District-Attorney Richard Crowley prosecuting, Hon. Henry R. Selden and

John Van Voorhis, Esq., defending. Miss Anthony, most of the ladies who

had voted with her, and also Mrs. Gage, were seated within the bar. On

the right sat the jury. The courtroom was crowded, many prominent men

being present, among them ex-President Fillmore. Judge Hall, of

Buffalo, was an interested spectator and Miss Anthony's counsel

endeavored to have him try the case with Judge Hunt in order that, if

necessary, it might go to the Supreme Court, which was not possible

with only one judge, but he refused.

[Illustration HW:

No one loves you and thanks

God more sincerely for your great

work for women than I do--

Lovingly Yours

C S Lozier]

It was conceded that Miss Anthony was a woman and that she voted on

November 5, 1872. Judge Selden, for the second time in all his

practice, offered himself as a witness, and testified that he advised

her to vote, believing that the laws and Constitution of the United

States gave her full authority. He then proposed to call Miss Anthony

to testify as to the intention or belief under which she voted, but the

Court held she was not competent as a witness in her own behalf. After

making this decision, the Court then admitted all the testimony, as

reported, which she gave on the preliminary examination before the

commissioner, in spite of her counsel's protest against accepting the

version which that officer took of her evidence. The prosecution simply

alleged the fact of her having voted. Mr. Selden then addressed the

judge and jury in a masterly argument of over three hours' duration,

beginning:

The defendant is indicted under the 19th Section of the Act of

Congress of May 31, 1870 (16th St. at L., 144), for "voting without

having a lawful right to vote." The words of the statute, so far as

they are material in this case, are as follows:

"If at any election for representative or delegate in the Congress

of the United States, any person shall knowingly ... vote without

having a lawful right to vote ... every such person shall be deemed

guilty of a crime ... and on conviction thereof shall be punished

by a fine not exceeding $500, or by imprisonment for a term not

exceeding three years, or by both, in the discretion of the Court,

and shall pay the costs of prosecution."

The only alleged ground of illegality of the defendant's vote is

that she is a woman. If the same act had been done by her brother

under the same circumstances, the act would have been not only

innocent but honorable and laudable; but having been done by a

woman it is said to be a crime. The crime therefore consists not in

the act done but in the simple fact that the person doing it was a

woman and not a man. I believe this is the first instance in which

a woman has been arraigned in a criminal court merely on account of

her sex....

Women have the same interest that men have in the establishment and

maintenance of good government; they are to the same extent as men

bound to obey the laws; they suffer to the same extent by bad laws,

and profit to the same extent by good laws; and upon principles of

equal justice, as it would seem, should be allowed, equally with

men, to express their preference in the choice of law-makers and

rulers. But however that may be, no greater absurdity, to use no

harsher term, could be presented, than that of rewarding men and

punishing women for the same act, _without giving to women any

voice in the question which should he rewarded and which punished_.

I am aware, however, that we are here to be governed by the

Constitution and laws as they are, and that if the defendant has

been guilty of violating the law, she must submit to the penalty,

however unjust or absurd the law may be. But courts are not

required to so interpret laws or constitutions as to produce either

absurdity or injustice, so long as they are open to a more

reasonable interpretation. This must be my excuse for what I design

to say in regard to the propriety of female suffrage, because with

that propriety established there is very little difficulty in

finding sufficient warrant in the Constitution for its exercise.

This case, in its legal aspects, presents three questions which I

propose to discuss.

1. Was the defendant legally entitled to vote at the election in

question?

2. If she was not entitled to vote but believed that she was, and

voted in good faith in that belief, did such voting constitute a

crime under the statute before referred to?

3. Did the defendant vote in good faith in that belief?

He argued the case from a legal, constitutional and moral standpoint

and concluded:

One other matter will close what I have to say. Miss Anthony

believed, and was advised, that she had a right to vote. She may

also have been advised, as was clearly the fact, that the question

as to her right could not be brought before the courts for trial

without her voting or offering to vote, and if either was criminal,

the one was as much so as the other. Therefore she stands now

arraigned as a criminal, for taking the only step by which it was

possible to bring the great constitutional question as to her right

before the tribunals of the country for adjudication. If for thus

acting, in the most perfect good faith, with motives as pure and

impulses as noble as any which can find place in your honor's

breast in the administration of justice, she is by the laws of her

country to be condemned as a criminal, she must abide the

consequences. Her condemnation, however, under such circumstances,

would only add another most weighty reason to those which I have

already advanced, to show that women need the aid of the ballot for

their protection.

The district-attorney followed with a two hours' speech. Then Judge

Hunt, without leaving the bench, delivered a written opinion[73] to the

effect that the Fourteenth Amendment, under which Miss Anthony claimed

the authority to vote, "was a protection, not to all our rights, but to

our rights as citizens of the United States only; that is, the rights

existing or belonging to that condition or capacity." At its conclusion

_he directed the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty_.

Miss Anthony's counsel insisted that the Court had no power to make

such a direction in a criminal case and demanded that the jury be

permitted to bring in its own verdict. The judge made no reply except

to order the clerk to take the verdict. Mr. Selden demanded that the

jury be polled. Judge Hunt refused, and at once discharged the jury

without allowing them any consultation or asking if they agreed upon a

verdict. Not one of them had spoken a word. After being discharged, the

jurymen talked freely and several declared they should have brought in

a verdict of "not guilty."

The next day Judge Selden argued the motion for a new trial on seven

exceptions, but this was denied by Judge Hunt. The following scene then

took place in the courtroom:

Judge Hunt.--(Ordering the defendant to stand up). Has the prisoner

anything to say why sentence shall not be pronounced?

Miss Anthony.--Yes, your honor, I have many things to say; for in

your ordered verdict of guilty you have trampled under foot every

vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil

rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike

ignored. Robbed of the fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am

degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject; and not

only myself individually but all of my sex are, by your honor's

verdict, doomed to political subjection under this so-called

republican form of government.

Judge Hunt.--The Court can not listen to a rehearsal of argument

which the prisoner's counsel has already consumed three hours in

presenting.

Miss Anthony.--May it please your honor, I am not arguing the

question, but simply stating the reasons why sentence can not, in

justice, be pronounced against me. Your denial of my citizen's

right to vote, is the denial of my right of consent as one of the

governed, the denial of my right of representation as one of the

taxed, the denial of my right to a trial by a jury of my peers as

an offender against law; therefore, the denial of my sacred right

to life, liberty, property and--

Judge Hunt.--The Court can not allow the prisoner to go on.

Miss Anthony.--But your honor will not deny me this one and only

poor privilege of protest against this high-handed outrage upon my

citizen's rights. May it please the Court to remember that, since

the day of my arrest last November, this is the first time that

either myself or any person of my disfranchised class has been

allowed a word of defense before judge or jury--

Judge Hunt.--The prisoner must sit down--the Court can not allow

it.

Miss Anthony.--Of all my prosecutors, from the corner grocery

politician who entered the complaint, to the United States marshal,

commissioner, district-attorney, district-judge, your honor on the

bench--not one is my peer, but each and all are my political

sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case to the jury, as

was clearly your duty, even then I should have had just cause of

protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but, native or

foreign born, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant,

sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political

superior; hence, in no sense, my peer. Under such circumstances a

commoner of England, tried before a jury of lords, would have far

less cause to complain than have I, a woman, tried before a jury of

men. Even my counsel, Hon. Henry R. Selden, who has argued my cause

so ably, so earnestly, so unanswerably before your honor, is my

political sovereign. Precisely as no disfranchised person is

entitled to sit upon a jury, and no woman is entitled to the

franchise, so none but a regularly admitted lawyer is allowed to

practice in the courts, and no woman can gain admission to the

bar--hence, jury, judge, counsel, all must be of the superior

class.

Judge Hunt.--The Court must insist--the prisoner has been tried

according to the established forms of law.

Miss Anthony.--Yes, your honor, but by forms of law all made by

men, interpreted by men, administered by men, in favor of men and

against women; and hence your honor's ordered verdict of guilty,

against a United States citizen for the exercise of the "citizen's

right to vote," simply because that citizen was a woman and not a

man. But yesterday, the same man-made forms of law declared it a

crime punishable with $1,000 fine and six months' imprisonment to

give a cup of cold water, a crust of bread or a night's shelter to

a panting fugitive tracking his way to Canada; and every man or

woman in whose veins coursed a drop of human sympathy violated that

wicked law, reckless of consequences, and was justified in so

doing. As then the slaves who got their freedom had to take it over

or under or through the unjust forms of law, precisely so now must

women take it to get their right to a voice in this government; and

I have taken mine, and mean to take it at every opportunity.

Judge Hunt.--The Court orders the prisoner to sit down. It will not

allow another word.

Miss Anthony.--When I was brought before your honor for trial, I

hoped for a broad and liberal interpretation of the Constitution

and its recent amendments, which should declare all United States

citizens under its protecting aegis--which should declare equality

of rights the national guarantee to all persons born or naturalized

in the United States. But failing to get this justice--failing,

even, to get a trial by a jury _not_ of my peers--I ask not

leniency at your hands but rather the full rigor of the law.

Judge Hunt--The Court must insist--[Here the prisoner sat down.]

The prisoner will stand up. [Here Miss Anthony rose again.] The

sentence of the Court is that you pay a fine of $100 and the costs

of the prosecution. Miss Anthony.--May it please your honor, I will

never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. All the stock in trade I

possess is a debt of $10,000, incurred by publishing my paper--The

Revolution--the sole object of which was to educate all women to do

precisely as I have done, rebel against your man-made, unjust,

unconstitutional forms of law, which tax, fine, imprison and hang

women, while denying them the right of representation in the

government; and I will work on with might and main to pay every

dollar of that honest debt, but not a penny shall go to this unjust

claim. And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all

women to the practical recognition of the old Revolutionary maxim,

"Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."

Judge Hunt.--Madam, the Court will not order you to stand committed

until the fine is paid.

Thus ended the great trial, "The United States of America _vs._ Susan

B. Anthony." From this date the question of woman suffrage was lifted

from one of grievances into one of Constitutional Law.

This was Judge Hunt's first criminal case after his elevation to the

Supreme Bench of the United States. He was appointed at the

solicitation of his intimate friend and townsman, Roscoe Conkling, and

had an interview with him immediately preceding this trial. Mr.

Conkling was an avowed enemy of woman suffrage. Miss Anthony always has

believed that he inspired the course of Judge Hunt and that his

decision was written before the trial, a belief shared by most of those

associated in the case.

Miss Anthony says in her journal: "The greatest judicial outrage

history ever recorded! No law, logic or demand of justice could change

Judge Hunt's will. We were convicted before we had a hearing and the

trial was a mere farce." Some time afterwards Judge Selden wrote her:

"I regard the ruling of the judge, and also his refusal to submit the

case to the jury, as utterly indefensible." Scarcely a newspaper in the

country sustained Judge Hunt's action. The Canandaigua Times thus

expressed the general sentiment in an editorial, soon after the trial:

The decisions of Judge Hunt in the Anthony case have been widely

criticised, and it seems to us not without reason. Even among those

who accept the conclusion that women have not a legal right to vote

and who do not hesitate to express the opinion that Miss Anthony

deserved a greater punishment than she received, we find many

seriously questioning the propriety of a proceeding whereby the

proper functions of the jury are dispensed with, and the Court

arrogates to itself the right to determine as to the guilt or

innocence of the accused party. If this may be done in one

instance, why may it not in all? And if our courts may thus

arbitrarily direct what verdicts shall be rendered, what becomes of

the right to trial "by an impartial jury," which the Constitution

guarantees to all persons alike, whether male or female? These are

questions of grave importance, to which the American people now

have their attention forcibly directed through the extraordinary

action of a judge of the Supreme Court. It is for them to say

whether the right of trial by jury shall exist only in form, or be

perpetuated according to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

The New York Sun scored the judge as follows:

Judge Hunt allowed the jury to be impanelled and sworn, and to hear

the evidence; but when the case had reached the point of the

rendering of the verdict, he directed a verdict of guilty. He thus

denied a trial by jury to an accused party in his court; and either

through malice, which we do not believe, or through ignorance,

which in such a flagrant degree is equally culpable in a judge, he

violated one of the most important provisions of the Constitution

of the United States. It is hardly worth while to argue that the

right of trial by jury includes the right to a verdict by the jury,

and to a free and impartial verdict, not one ordered, compelled and

forced from them by an adverse and predetermined court. The

language of the Constitution of the United States is that "in all

criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy

and public trial by an impartial jury." Do the words an "impartial

jury" mean a jury directed and controlled by the court, and who

might just as well, for all practical purposes, be twelve wooden

automatons, moved by a string pulled by the hand of the judge?

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle commented:

In the action of Judge Hunt there was a grand, over-reaching

assumption of authority, unsupported by any point in the case

itself, but adopted as an established legal principle. If there is

such a principle, Judge Hunt did his duty beyond question, and he

is scarcely lower than the angels so far as personal power goes.

The New York Sun assumes that there is no such principle; that if

there were, "Judge Hunt might on his own _ipsedixit_, and without

the intervention of a jury, fine, imprison or hang any man, woman

or child in the United States." And the Sun proceeds to say that

Judge Hunt "must be impeached and removed. Such punishment for the

commission of a crime like his against civil liberty is a

necessity. The American people will not tolerate a judge like this

on the bench of their highest court. To do it would be to submit

their necks to as detestable a tyranny as ever existed on the face.

of the earth. They will not sit quietly by to see their liberties,

red and radiant with the blood of a million of their sons, silently

melted away in the judicial crucible of a stolid and tyrannical

judge of their Federal Court." This is forcible, certainly; but it

ought to be speedily decided, at least, whether there is such a

legal principle as we have mentioned.

The Utica Observer gave this opinion:

We have sought the advice of the best legal and judicial minds in

our State in regard to the ruling of Justice Ward Hunt in the case

of Susan B. Anthony. While the written opinion of the judge is very

generally commended, his action in ordering a verdict of guilty to

be entered, without giving the jury an opportunity of saying

whether it was their verdict or not, is almost universally

condemned. Such a case never before occurred in the history of our

courts, and the hope is very general that it never will again.

Between the indictment and the judgment stands the jury, and there

is no way known to the law by which the jury's power in criminal

cases can be abrogated. The judge may charge the jury that the

defense is invalid; that it is their clear duty to find the

prisoner guilty. But beyond this he can not properly go. He has no

right to order the clerk to enter a verdict which is not the

verdict of the jury. In doing this thing Justice Hunt outraged the

rights of Susan B. Anthony. It would probably puzzle him to tell

why he submitted the case of the inspectors to the jury after

taking the case of Miss Anthony out of their hands. It would also

puzzle his newspaper champions.

The Legal News, of Chicago, edited by Myra Bradwell, made this

pertinent comment: "Judge Ward Hunt, of the Federal Bench, violated the

Constitution of the United States more in convicting Miss Anthony of

illegal voting, than she did in voting; for he had sworn to support it,

and she had not."

The Albany Law Journal, however, after indulging in a few vulgar

platitudes on the fact of Miss Anthony's having admitted that she was a

woman, declared that Judge Hunt transcended his rights but that "if

Miss Anthony does not like our laws she'd better emigrate!" This legal

authority failed to advise where she could emigrate to find laws which

were equally just to men and to women. It might also have answered the

question, "Should a woman be compelled to leave the land of her

nativity because of the injustice of its laws?"

Miss Anthony's trial closed on Wednesday and she remained in

Canandaigua to attend that of the three inspectors, which followed at

once. She was called as a witness and inquired of Judge Hunt: "I should

like to know if the testimony of a person convicted of a crime can be

taken?" "They call you as a witness, madam," was his brusque reply.

Later, thinking to trap her, he asked, "You presented yourself as a

female, claiming that you had a right to vote?" Quick as a flash came

her answer: "I presented myself not as a female, sir, but as a citizen

of the United States. I was called to the ballot-box by the Fourteenth

Amendment, not as a female but as a citizen."

The inspectors were defended by Mr. Van Voorhis but, after the

testimony was introduced, the judge refused to allow him to address the

jury. He practically directed them to bring in a verdict of guilty,

saying, "You can decide it here or go out." The jury returned a verdict

of guilty. The motion for a new trial was denied. One of the inspectors

(Hall) had been tried and convicted without being brought into court.

They were fined $25 each and the costs of the prosecution but, although

neither was paid, they were not imprisoned at that time.

When asked for his opinion on the case, after a lapse of twenty-four

years, Mr. Van Voorhis gave the following:

There never before was a trial in the country of one-half the

importance of this of Miss Anthony's. That of Andrew Johnson had no

issue which could compare in value with the one here at stake. If

Miss Anthony had won her case on the merits, it would have

revolutionized the suffrage of the country and enfranchised every

woman in the United States. There was a pre-arranged determination

to convict her. A jury trial was dangerous, and so the Constitution

was openly and deliberately violated.

The Constitution makes the jury, in a criminal case, the judges of

the law and of the facts. No matter how clear or how strong the

case may appear to the judge, it must be submitted to the jury.

That is the mandate of the Constitution. As no one can be convicted

of crime except upon trial by jury, it follows that the jury are

entitled to pass upon the law as well as the facts. The judge can

advise the jury on questions of law. He can legally do no more. If

he control the jury and direct a verdict of guilty, he himself is

guilty of a crime for which impeachment is the remedy.

The jury in Miss Anthony's case was composed of excellent men. None

better could have been drawn anywhere. Justice Hunt knew that. He

had the jury impanelled only as a matter of form. He said so in the

inspectors' case. He came to Canandaigua to hold the Circuit Court,

for the purpose of convicting Miss Anthony. He had unquestionably

prepared his opinion beforehand. The job had to be done, so he took

the bull by the horns and directed the jury to find a verdict of

guilty. In the case of the inspectors he refused to defendants'

counsel the right of addressing the jury.

Judge Hunt very adroitly, in passing sentence on Miss Anthony

imposing a fine of $100, refused to add, what is usual in such

cases, that she be imprisoned until the fine be paid. Had he done

so, Miss Anthony would have gone to prison, and then taken her case

directly to the Supreme Court of the United States by writ of

habeas corpus. There she would have been discharged, because trial

by jury had been denied her. But as Miss Anthony was not even held

in custody after judgment had been pronounced, she could not resort

to habeas corpus proceedings and had no appeal.

But the outrage of ordering a verdict of guilty against the

defendant was not the only outrage committed by this judge on these

trials:

It was an outrage to refuse the right of a defendant to poll the

jury.

It was an outrage for the judge to refuse to hold that if the

defendant believed she had a right to vote, and voted in good faith

in that belief, she was not guilty of the charge.

It was an outrage to hold that the jury, in considering the

question whether she did or did not believe she had a right to

vote, might not consider that she took the advice of Judge Selden

before she voted, and acted on that advice.

It was an outrage to hold that the jury might not take into

consideration, as bearing upon the same question, the fact that the

inspectors and supervisor of election looked into the question, and

came to the conclusion that she had the right to be registered and

vote, and told her so, and so decided.

It was an outrage for the judge to hold that the jury had not the

right to consider the defendant's motive, and to find her innocent

if she acted without any intent to violate the law.

In the case of the inspectors, it was an outrage to refuse

defendants' counsel the right to address the jury.

It was an outrage to refuse to instruct the jury that if the

defendants, being administrative officers, acted without any

criminal motive but in accordance with their best judgment, and in

perfect good faith, they were not guilty.

Judge Selden has passed to his eternal rest and lies beneath a massive

monument of granite in beautiful Mount Hope cemetery. Mr. Van Voorhis

thus paid tribute to his associate in this noted case: "His argument on

the constitutional points involved is one of the ablest and most

complete to be found in history. As a lawyer he had no superior; he was

a master in his profession. He had a most discriminating mind and a

marvellous memory. He was familiar with the books, and possessed a

power of statement equal to that of Daniel Webster. I predict that the

verdict of history will be that Judge Selden was right and the Court

wrong upon the constitutional question involved in this case."

To the heavy debts of The Revolution which, with all her efforts, Miss

Anthony had been able to reduce but a fraction, were now added the

costs of this suit. She did not propose to pay the fines, but she did

intend to see that the inspectors were relieved of all expense in

connection with the trial. Her indomitable courage did not fail her

even in this emergency, and as usual she was sustained by the

substantial appreciation of her friends. Letters of sympathy and

financial help poured in from acquaintances and strangers in all parts

of the country. Indignation meetings were held and contributions sent

also by various reform clubs and societies.[74] All were swallowed up

in the heavy and unavoidable expenses of the suits of herself and the

inspectors. Neither of her lawyers ever presented a bill. She had 5,000

copies made of Judge Selden's argument on the habeas corpus at Albany,

which she scattered broadcast. She also had printed 3,000 pamphlets, at

a cost of $700, containing a full report of the trial, and sent them to

all the law journals in the United States and Canada, to the

newspapers, etc. The Democrat and Chronicle said of this book, "We

believe it is the most important contribution yet made to the

discussion of woman suffrage from a legal standpoint." None of the

other cases ever were brought to trial.[75]

Miss Anthony had no fears of not being able to raise money to pay her

debts if she could be free to give her time to the lecture platform,

but an entire year had been occupied with her trial, and the money

received during this period had been required to meet its expenses. She

had a vital reason, however, for feeling that she could not leave

home--the rapidly-failing health of her beloved sister Guelma, her

senior by only twenty months, for more than half a century her close

companion, and for the past eight years living under the same roof. Her

heart had been broken by the death, a few years before, of her two

beautiful children just at the dawn of manhood and womanhood, and the

fatal malady consumption met with no resistance. Day by day she faded

away, the physician holding out no hope from the first. Her mother, now

eighty years of age, was completely crushed; the sister Mary was

principal of one of the city schools and busy all day, and Miss Anthony

felt it her imperative duty to remain beside the invalid, even could

she have overcome her grief sufficiently to appear in public.

Invitations to lecture came to her from many points but she refused

them and remained by the gentle sufferer day and night.[76] At daybreak

on November 9 the loved one passed away, and the tender hands of

sisters and of the only daughter performed the last ministrations.[77]

With Miss Anthony the love of family was especially intense as she had

formed no outside ties, and the parents, the brothers and sisters

filled her world of affection. The sundering of these bonds wrenched

her very heartstrings and upon every recurring anniversary the anguish

broke forth afresh, scarcely assuaged by the lapse of years. A short

time after this last sorrow she writes:

MY DEAR MOTHER: How continually, except the one hour when I am on

the platform, is the thought of you and your loss and my own with

me! How little we realize the constant presence in our minds of our

loved and loving ones until they are forever gone. We would not

call them back to endure again their suffering, but we can not help

wishing they might have been spared to us in health and vigor. Our

Guelma, does she look down upon us, does she still live, and shall

we all live again and know each other, and work together and love

and enjoy one another? In spite of instinct, in spite of faith,

these questions will come up again and again.... She said you would

soon follow her, and we know that in the nature of things it must

be so. When that time comes, dear mother, may you fall asleep as

sweetly and softly as did your eldest born; and as the sands of

life ebb out into the great eternal, may all of us be with you to

make the way easy. It does seem too cruel that every one of us must

be so overwhelmingly immersed in work, but may the Good Father help

us so to do that there may be no vain regrets for things done or

left undone when the last hour comes.

A beautiful incident cast a flood of light through the heavy shadows of

this trying year, and made November 27 in truth a day of Thanksgiving

for one brave woman. At his urgent invitation, Miss Anthony had spent

it in the home of her cousin, Anson Laphain, at Skaneateles. After a

pleasant day, as she sat quietly and sadly by the window, watching the

deepening twilight, the noble-hearted cousin took from his desk her

notes for $4,000, which he had so generously loaned her during the

stormy days of The Revolution, cancelled all and presented them to her.

She was overwhelmed with surprise and when she attempted to express her

gratitude, he stopped her with words of respect, confidence and

encouragement which seemed to roll away a stone from her heart and in

its place put new hope, ambition and strength.

[Footnote 68: ... Good and lawful men of the said District, then and

there sworn and charged to inquire for the said United States of

America, and for the body of said District, do, upon their oaths,

present, that Susan B. Anthony now or late of Rochester, in the county

of Monroe, with force and arms,... did knowingly, wrongfully and

unlawfully vote for a Representative in the Congress of the United

States for the State of New York at large, and for a Representative in

the Congress of the United States for said twenty-ninth Congressional

District, without having a lawful right to vote in said election

district (the said Susan B. Anthony being then and there a person of

the female sex), as she, the said Susan B. Anthony then and there well

knew, contrary to the form of the statute of the United States of

America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the

United States of America and their dignity, etc.]

[Footnote 69: The Twenty-fifth Woman Suffrage Anniversary will be held

in Apollo Hall, New York, Tuesday, May 6, 1873. Lucretia Mott and

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who called the first woman's rights convention

at Seneca Falls in 1848, will be present to give their reminiscences.

That convention was scarcely mentioned by the local press; now, over

the whole world, equality for woman is demanded. In the United States,

woman suffrage is the chief political question of the hour. Great

Britain is deeply agitated upon the same topic. Germany has a princess

at the head of its national woman's rights organization. Portugal,

Spain and Russia have been roused. In Rome an immense meeting, composed

of the representatives of Italian democracy, was recently called in the

Coliseum; one of its resolutions demanded a reform in the laws relating

to woman and a re-establishment of her natural rights. Turkey, France,

England, Switzerland, Italy, sustain papers devoted to woman's

enfranchisement. A Grand International Woman's Rights Congress is to be

held in Paris, in September of this year, to which the whole world is

invited to send delegates, and this congress is to be under the

management of the most renowned liberals of Europe. Come up, then,

friends, and celebrate the silver wedding of the woman suffrage

movement. Let our twenty-fifth anniversary be one of power; our reform

is everywhere advancing, let us redouble our energies and our courage.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _President_; MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _Chairman Executive

Committee_.]

[Footnote 70: See Appendix for speech in full.]

[Footnote 71: See Appendix for newspaper comment.]

[Footnote 72: A full report of this trial, testimony, arguments of

counsel, etc., may be found in the History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II,

beginning page 647.]

[Footnote 73: Can a judge with propriety prepare a _written_ opinion

before he has heard all the arguments in a case?]

[Footnote 74: The Buffalo suffrage club sent $100; the Chicago club,

through Mrs. Fernando Jones, $75; the Milwaukee club, through Madame

Anneke, $50; the Milwaukee "radicals," $20; the New York club, through

Lillie Devereux Blake, $50; the patients at the Dansville Sanitarium,

$30. Dr. Lozier sent $30; Lucretia Mott, $30; Dr. E.B. Foote, of New

York, $25; Phebe Jones, of Albany, $25; Dr. Sarah Dolley, of Rochester,

$20; the Hallowells, $25; the Glastonbury Smith sisters, $20; and from

men and women in all parts of the country came sums from fifty cents

upwards, all amounting to over $1,100. Gerrit Smith sent at first $30

to help defray the expenses of the trial, and after it was over a draft

for $100, saying: "I send you herewith the money to pay your fine. If

you shall still decline doing so, then use it at your own discretion to

promote the cause of woman suffrage." Mrs. Lewia C. Smith raised a

purse of $100 among Rochester friends and presented it as a testimonial

to Judge Selden, in the name of the Women Tax-Payers' Society. Miss

Anthony gave a lecture in Corinthian Hall for the benefit of the

inspectors, which netted about $180.]

[Footnote 75: The first Woman's Congress, afterwards called the

Association for the Advancement of Women, was organized during the

autumn of this year. To the call were appended the names of most of the

noted women of the day, but Miss Anthony's was conspicuously absent.

Her most intimate friends being among the signers, and supposing she

was to be also, made inquiry as to the reason and received this answer:

1st, Her name beginning with A would have had to head the list; 2d, Her

title as president of the National Woman Suffrage Association would

have had to be given; 3d, She could not be managed. Miss Anthony was so

greatly amused at these reasons that she quite forgave the omission of

her name.]

[Footnote 76: And yet on November 4 she stole away long enough to go to

the polling-place and again offer her vote. It was refused, she found

her name had been struck from the register, and thus ended that

battle.]

[Footnote 77: Three of the brave Rochester women who went to the polls

at the election of 1872, died within one year: Guelma Anthony McLean,

Mary B.F. Curtis and Rhoda De Garmo.]

CHAPTER XXVI.

NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO JURY OR FRANCHISE.

1874.

Miss Anthony's case continued to attract widespread attention, Judge

Hunt's arbitrary action finding few apologists even among opponents of

woman suffrage. It was finally decided by her counsel and herself to

make an appeal to Congress for the remission of the fine, which, if

granted, would be in effect a declaration of the illegality of Judge

Hunt's act and a precedent for the future. Judge Selden based his

authority for such an appeal on a case in the United States Statutes at

Large, chap. 45, p. 802, where a fine of $1,000 and costs, illegally

imposed upon Matthew Lyon under the Alien and Sedition Laws, 1799, were

refunded with interest to his heirs. Mr. Van Voorhis found an authority

also in an act passed by the British Parliament in 1792, correcting the

departure from the common law, in respect to the rights of juries, by

Lord Mansfield and his associates in the cases of Woodfall and Shipley.

This act was passed through the exertions of Lord Camden and Mr. Fox in

order to prevent the erroneous decisions of the judges from becoming

the law of England.

Both of the attorneys keenly resented the action of Judge Hunt, Mr.

Selden pronouncing it "the greatest judicial outrage ever perpetrated

in the United States;" and Mr. Van Voorhis asserting that "trial by

jury was completely annihilated in this case, and there is no remedy

except to appeal to the justice of Congress to remit the fine and

declare that trial by jury does and shall exist in this country." The

appeal, or petition, was prepared and Miss Anthony carried it to

Washington when she went to the National Convention, January 15, 1874.

It was an able document, reciting the facts in the case and the action

of the judge, and concluding:

Your petitioner respectfully submits that, in these proceedings,

she has been denied the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to

all persons accused of crime, the right of trial by jury and the

right to have the assistance of counsel for their defense. It is a

mockery to call hers a trial by jury; and, unless the assistance of

counsel may be limited to the argument of legal questions, without

the privilege of saying a word to the jury upon the question of the

guilt or innocence in fact of a party charged, or the privilege of

ascertaining from the jury whether they do or do not agree to the

verdict pronounced by the Court in their name, she has been denied

the assistance of counsel for her defense.

Of the decision of the judge upon the question of the right of your

petitioner to vote, she makes no complaint. It was a question

properly belonging to the Court to decide, was fully and fairly

submitted to the judge, and of his decision, whether right or

wrong, your petitioner is well aware she can not here complain. But

in regard to her conviction of crime, which she insists, for the

reasons above given, was in violation of the principles of the

common law, of common morality, of the statute under which she was

charged, and of the Constitution--a crime of which she was as

innocent as the judge by whom she was convicted--she respectfully

asks, inasmuch as the law has provided no means of reviewing the

decisions of the judge, or of correcting his errors, that the fine

imposed upon your petitioner be remitted, as an expression of the

sense of this high tribunal that her conviction was unjust.

This was presented in the Senate by A.A. Sargent, of California, and in

the House by William Loughridge, of Iowa, and was referred to the

judiciary committees. In May, Lyman Tremaine, from the House Judiciary

Committee, reported adversely on the petition in a lengthy document,

which incorporated a letter from District-Attorney Crowley, urging the

committee "not to degrade a just judge and applaud a criminal;" and

declaring that "Miss Anthony's trial was fair and constitutional and by

an impartial jury." (!) Mr. Tremaine's report said: "Congress can not

be converted into a national court of review for any and all criminal

convictions where it shall be alleged the judge has committed an

error." Thus did he deliberately ignore the point at issue, the refusal

of a trial by jury. It concluded by saying: "Since the discussion of

this question has arisen in the committee, the President has pardoned

Miss Anthony for the offense of which she was convicted and this seems

to furnish a conclusive reason why no further action should be taken by

the judiciary committee." (!) The learned gentleman probably referred

to the pardon of the inspectors by the President. Miss Anthony had not

asked executive clemency for herself.

Benjamin F. Butler presented an able and exhaustive minority report

which closed with the following declaration: "Therefore, because the

fine has been imposed by a court of the United States for an offense

triable by jury, without the same being submitted to the jury, and

because the court assumed to itself the right to enter a verdict

without submitting the case to the jury, and in order that the judgment

of the House of Representatives, if it concur with the judgment of the

committee, may, in the most signal and impressive form, mark its

determination to sustain in its integrity the common law right of trial

by jury, your committee recommend that the prayer of the petitioner be

granted."

In June George F. Edmunds made an adverse report from the Senate

Judiciary Committee in this remarkable language: "That they are not

satisfied that the ruling of the judge was precisely as represented in

the petition, and that if it were so, the Senate could not legally take

any action in the premises, and they move that the committee be

discharged from the further consideration of the petition, and that the

bill be postponed indefinitely."

Senator Matthew II. Carpenter presented a long and carefully prepared

minority report which concluded:

Unfortunately the United States has no "well-ordered system of

jurisprudence." A citizen may be tried, condemned and put to death

by the erroneous judgment of a single inferior judge, and no court

can grant him relief or a new trial. If a citizen have a cause

involving the title to his farm, if it exceed $2,000 in value, he

may bring his cause to the Supreme Court; but if it involve his

liberty or his life, he can not. While we permit this blemish to

exist on our judicial system, it behooves us to watch carefully the

judgments inferior courts may render; and it is doubly important

that we should see to it that twelve jurors shall concur with the

judge before a citizen shall be hanged, incarcerated or otherwise

punished.

I concur with the majority of the committee that Congress can not

grant the precise relief prayed for in the memorial; but I deem it

to be the duty of Congress to declare its disapproval of the

doctrine asserted and the course pursued in the trial of Miss

Anthony; and all the more for the reason that no judicial court has

jurisdiction to review the proceedings therein.

I need not disclaim all purpose to question the motives of the

learned judge before whom this trial was conducted. The best of

judges may commit the gravest of errors amid the hurry and

confusion of a nisi prius term; and the wrong Miss Anthony has

suffered ought to be charged to the vicious system which denies to

those convicted of offenses against the laws of the United States a

hearing before the court of last resort--a defect it is equally

within the power and the duty of Congress speedily to remedy.

When Miss Anthony returned to Rochester in February, she found the

inspectors were about to be put into jail because, acting under advice,

they still refused to pay their fines. She wrote Benjamin F. Butler,

who replied under date of February 22: "I would not, if I were they,

pay, but allow process to be served; and I have no doubt the President

will remit the fine if they are pressed too far." They were imprisoned

February 26. Miss Anthony went at once to the jail and urged them not

to pay the fine, for the sake of principle, promising to see that they

were soon released. She waded through a heavy snow to consult her

attorneys and then to the newspaper offices to talk with the editors in

regard to the prisoners, reaching home at dark, and in her diary that

night she writes, "I could not bear to come away and leave them one

night in that dolorous place."

She went out for a few lectures in neighboring towns, and at the

Dansville Sanitarium was presented by the patients with a purse of $62.

Arriving in Rochester at 7 A. M., March 2, she went straight to the

jail and breakfasted with the inspectors; then to see the marshal and

succeeded in having them released on bail. She did not reach home till

1 p. M., and here she found this telegram from Senator Sargent: "I laid

the case of the inspectors before the President today. He kindly orders

their pardon. Papers are being prepared." Benjamin F. Butler also had

interceded with the President and sent Miss Anthony a telegram of

congratulation on the result. In a few days the inspectors were

pardoned and their fines remitted by President Grant. They were in jail

just one week and during that time received hundreds of calls, while

each day bountiful meals were sent them by the women whose votes they

had accepted. After their pardon a reception was given them at the home

of Miss Anthony's sister, Mrs. Mosher, by the ladies of the Eighth

ward, and in the spring they were re-elected by a handsome majority.

Miss Anthony's fine stands against her to the present day.

This case was the dominating feature of the National Convention at

Washington in the winter of 1874; the key-note of all the speeches and

the arguments before the judiciary committees was woman's right to vote

under the Fourteenth Amendment. The women did not relinquish this claim

until all ground for it was destroyed by a decision of the United

States Supreme Court in 1875, in the case of Virginia L. Minor, of St.

Louis. Francis Minor, a lawyer of that city, was the first to assert

that women were enfranchised by both the letter and the spirit of the

Fourteenth Amendment, and, acting under his advice, his wife attempted

to register for the presidential election of 1872. Her name was refused

and she brought suit against the inspector for the purpose of making a

test case. After an adverse decision by the lower courts, the case was

carried to the Supreme Court of the United States and argued before

that tribunal by Mr. Minor, at the October term, 1874. It is not too

much to say that no constitutional lawyer in the country could have

improved upon this argument in its array of authorities, its keen logic

and its impressive plea for justice.[78]

The decision was adverse, the opinion of the court being delivered

March 29, 1875, by Chief-Justice Waite, himself a strong advocate of

the enfranchisement of women. The court admitted that "women are

persons and citizens," but found that the "National Constitution does

not define the privileges and immunities of citizens. The United States

has no voters of its own creation. The National Constitution does not

confer the right of suffrage upon any one, but the franchise must be

regulated by the States. The Fourteenth Amendment does not add to the

privileges and immunities of a citizen; it simply furnishes an

additional guarantee to protect those he already has. Before the

passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the States had the

power to disfranchise on account of race or color. These amendments,

ratified by the States, simply forbade that discrimination, but did not

forbid that against sex."

This is in direct contradiction to the decision of Chief-Justice Taney

in the Dred Scott case: "The words 'people of the United States' and

'citizens' are synonymous terms and mean the same thing; they describe

the _political body who, according to our republican institutions, form

the sovereignty and hold the power, and conduct the government through

their representatives_. They are what we familiarly call the sovereign

people, and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent

member of this sovereignty."

Although Miss Anthony and her co-workers still believed that, with a

true interpretation, women were voters under these amendments, they

were obliged to accept the decision of the highest court of appeal.

They then returned to the work of petitioning Congress for a Sixteenth

Amendment to the National Constitution which should prohibit

disfranchisement on account of sex. They continued also the original

plan of endeavoring to secure amendments to the constitutions of the

different States abolishing the word "male" as a qualification for

voting.[79] Bitterly disappointed at the decision of the Supreme Court,

it was nevertheless a source of pride to the women that they had made

their claim for representation in the government, carried it to the

highest tribunal and gone down in honorable defeat.

[Illustration HW: Yours truly Virginia L. Minor]

Miss Anthony never hesitated to ask the most distinguished men to speak

on the woman suffrage platform, and Henry Wilson writes from the

chamber of the Vice-President his regrets that he can not accept her

invitation. Benjamin F. Butler replies: "As a rule I have refused to

take part in any convention in the District of Columbia about any

matter which might come before Congress. I have gone farther out of my

way in that regard in the matter of woman suffrage than in any other.

Having given evidence that I am most strongly committed to the

legality, propriety and justice of granting the ballot to woman, I do

not see how I can add anything to it. Hoping that your cause may

succeed, I have the honor to be, very truly yours."

Her cousin, Elbridge G. Lapham, M. C., of New York, says in a letter:

"I am persuaded the time is fast hastening when woman will be accorded

the exercise of the right your association demands. With that secured,

many other advantages, now denied, will surely and speedily follow. I

can see no valid objection to the right of suffrage being conferred,

while there are many and very cogent reasons in favor of it. As has

been said, you may go on election day to the most degraded elector you

can find at the polls, who would sell his vote for a dollar or a dram,

and ask him what he would take for his _right to vote_ and you couldn't

purchase it with a kingdom."

[Autograph: Elbridge G. Lapham]

She found it possible even to interview the President of the United

States on this question. During a conversation with General Grant one

day on Pennsylvania Avenue, she said, "Well, Mr. President, what are

you going to do for woman suffrage?" In a hearty, pleasant way he

answered, "I have already done more for women than any other President,

I have recognized the right of 5,000 of them to be postmasters." There

were always distinguished men to champion this cause, but the chief

drawback was expressed in a letter from that staunch supporter, Hon.

A.G. Riddle, in 1874:

There is not, I think, the slightest hope from the courts; and just

as little from politicians. They never will take up this cause,

never! Individuals will, parties never--till the thing is done. The

Republicans want no new issues or disturbing elements. The

Democrats are certain that the Republicans are about to dissolve;

and they want to hold on as they are. Both think this thing may,

perhaps will come, but now is not the time; and with both, there

never will be a "now." The trouble is that below all this lies the

fact that man can govern alone and that, though woman has the

right, man wants to do it; and if she wait for him to ask her, she

will never vote.

There never was a cause with so much unembodied strength, and with

so little working power; and the problem is how to vitalize and

organize it. One of two things, I think, must occur; either man

must be made to see and feel, as he never has done yet, the need of

woman's help in the great field of human government, and so demand

it; or woman must arise and come forward as she never has, and take

her place. I still think that one of the main hindrances is with

women. The fact is, that the worst bugbear is the never-seen,

ever-felt law of caste which has always walled woman around, and

which few have the courage to step over.

[Autograph:

Sincerely yours

A.G. Riddle]

At the close of the convention Miss Anthony accepted the invitation

of Mrs. Hooker, the State president, to join her in a month's tour

through Connecticut. They spoke in nineteen different cities and

towns, Mrs. Hooker assuming all financial responsibility and paying

Miss Anthony $25 for each lecture. They had excellent audiences and

were entertained in many beautiful homes. In Miss Anthony's diary,

March 11, she says: "Senator Sumner died today, the noblest Roman

of them all; true to the negro, but never a public word for woman.

How I have pleaded with him for years, and he always admitted that

his principles logically carried out gave woman an equal guarantee

with man."

In the spring of 1874 the women's temperance crusade began in

Rochester and, although their methods were very different from

those Miss Anthony would have employed, she met with them at their

request to help them organize. After this was effected they called

on her for a speech and she said in brief:

I am always glad to welcome every association of women for any good

purpose, because I know that they will quickly learn the

impossibility of accomplishing any substantial end. Women never

realize their inability to effect a reform until they attempt it,

and then they find how closely interwoven with politics are all

such matters, and how entirely without political power are they

themselves.... Now my good women, the best thing this organization

will do for you will be to show you how utterly powerless you are

to put down the liquor traffic. You never can talk down or sing

down or pray down an institution which is voted into existence. You

never will be able to lessen this evil until you have votes.

Frederick Douglass used to tell how, when he was a Maryland slave

and a good Methodist, he would go into the farthest corner of the

tobacco field and pray God to bring him liberty; but God never

answered his prayers until he prayed with his heels. And so, dear

friends, He never will answer yours for the suppression of the

liquor traffic until you are able to pray with your ballots.[80]

Miss Anthony's sentiments on this question are further expressed in a

letter to her brother Daniel R., editor Leavenworth Times:

I like the Times' article on the women's whiskey war. Emerson says,

"God answers only such prayers as men themselves answer." After

ignorant and helpless mothers have transmitted to their children

the drunkard's appetite, God can not answer their prayers to

prevent them from gratifying it. But this crusade will educate the

women who engage in it to use the one and only means of regulating

or prohibiting the traffic in liquor--that of the ballot. As soon

as they find this crusade experiment a failure, which they

certainly will, because all spasmodic, sensational religious

efforts are transient and fleeting, they will realize the enduring

strength and usefulness of the franchise. However little that is

permanent may come of this movement, it is good in itself because

anything is better for women than tame submission to the evils

around them; and when they find kind words, entreaties and tears

avail nothing, they will surely try the virtue of stones (votes) to

bring down the great demon that desolates their homes.

An entry in the journal made soon afterward says: "I dropped into the

Industrial Congress today and was invited to speak. I told the men that

the degraded labor of women made them quite as heavy a millstone round

the necks of working-men as is the Heathen Chinese." And a few days

later: "Dr. Dio Lewis called today, and I went to hear him speak this

evening. Same old story--men make and break the laws, and women by love

and persuasion must soften their hearts to abandon their wickedness.

Never a hint that women should have anything to do with the making and

enforcing of the laws. They must only coax."

The diary shows over one hundred letters written by Miss Anthony's own

hand in arranging for the May Anniversary in New York, while she sat at

the bedside of her mother, who was very ill. Many cordial answers were

received, among them one from Josephine E. Butler, of England. Mary L.

Booth thus closed her reply: "Pray believe that I always hold you in

affectionate remembrance as one of the most sincere, earnest and

disinterested women whom it has ever been my fortune to meet, and whom

I shall always be glad to hear from or to see." Mrs. Stanton sent an

extract from a letter of Martha C. Wright, saying: "Our only hope is in

the gradual accession of thinking men and women, and in our indomitable

Susan."

At Miss Anthony's earnest desire, Mrs. Wright was elected president of

the association and this proved to be her last appearance on that

platform which she had graced for many years. An interesting feature of

the meeting was the presence of the veteran worker, Ernestine L. Rose,

who was back from England on a visit. During this May meeting a

telegram was sent over the country stating: "Miss Anthony stalked down

the aisle with faded alpaca dress to the top of her boots, blue cotton

umbrella and white cotton gloves, perched herself on the platform,

crossed her legs, pulled out her snuff-box and passed it around. On the

platform were Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Rose and other

noted women, all dressed in unmentionables cut bias, and smoking penny

drab cigars. Susan was quite drunk." The New York Herald, which rarely

had a good word for the suffrage conventions, in a long and respectful

account of this same meeting, said:

There was a perfume of Fifth Avenue about the audience. Carriages

in livery rolled up to the door. The striking contrast of this

audience with that of other years, in the almost perfect conformity

of the manner and dress of the women to those of other women who

rule in the fashionable world and are supposed to look down upon

these knights-errant of the sex, was not greater than that between

the treatment of Miss Anthony now and in other times. In former

years they came to scoff at this wiry and resolute champion of her

sex. Now every word she utters is received with almost reverent

rapture. Yesterday brought together as intelligent and perhaps as

refined an audience of ladies as might he gathered in the city.

Miss Anthony was dressed with her usual simplicity in black silk.

She read the call for the convention and made thereon one of her

characteristic addresses, full of fire and prophecy.

During the summer of 1874 Miss Anthony lectured in many places in

Massachusetts and New York, striving to pay the interest and reduce by

a little her pressing debts, and slipping home occasionally to see her

mother who was carefully tended by the devoted sister Mary. At one of

these times she writes in her diary: "It is always so good to get into

my own humble bed." August 22 she sent a letter of congratulation on

his fiftieth birthday to her brother Daniel R. After referring to the

$50 he sent to her at the close of her half century, she says:

Though I can not return my love and wishes in the same kind, they

are none the less for your joy and peace in the future, neither is

my rejoicing less over the success of your first half of life. From

your many experiences, whether they have been such as you would

have chosen or not, strength, growth, discipline have resulted, and

sometimes I think all the adverse winds of life are needed to check

our ever-rising vain-glory in our own power and success....

Whatever comes to those closely united by marriage or by blood, the

one lesson from recent developments in Brooklyn is that none of the

parties ever should take in an outside person as confidant. If the

twain can not themselves restore their oneness, none other can. If

parents and children, brothers and sisters, can not adjust their

own differences among themselves, it is in vain they look to

friends outside.

What lessons we are having that not only is honesty the best

policy, but that there is nothing but most dreadful disaster in any

policy which is not based on absolute honesty. The fact is, nothing

is worth the getting, if that has to be done by cunning, falsehood,

deception. Whether it be wealth, position, office or the society of

one we love, if we have to steal it, though it may be sweet and

seemingly real and lasting, the exposure of the illicit means of

gaining it is sure to come, and then the thing itself turns to

dross. When will the children of men learn this fact, that nothing

pays but that which is obtained fairly, openly and honestly?

This year the Michigan Legislature submitted a woman suffrage amendment

to the voters, and Miss Anthony decided to canvass the State. To do

this would ruin her own lecture season for the autumn, and those in

charge of the suffrage campaign could offer her no salary. She did not

hesitate, however, but without any financial guarantee, began her work

there September 24. On the eve of going she wrote to a friend: "I leave

home without having had one single week of rest this summer--not this

year, indeed, nor for twenty-five years." She made a forty days'

canvass, taking out three days for the Illinois convention at Chicago,

and during that time spoke in thirty-five different places. Everywhere

she addressed immense and enthusiastic crowds. She was frequently

preceded by Senator Zach. Chandler, speaking for the Republican party,

and often her audiences were much larger than the senator's.[81] Toward

the close of the campaign she wrote home:

If these meetings of mine were only by and in favor of an

enfranchised class, they would carry almost the solid vote of every

town for the measure advocated; but alas, they are for a class

powerless to help or hinder any party for good or for evil. It is

wonderful to see how quickly the prejudices yield to a little

common sense talk. If only we had speakers and time, we could carry

the vote of this State, but we have neither, and so all we can hope

for is a respectable minority. I enclose $200 left above travelling

expenses, hall rent, etc., from collections and the sale of my

trial pamphlets. If I could have had even a twenty-five cents

admission, I should have cleared over $1,000, but I could not have

it said that I went to Michigan, at such a crisis, to make money

for myself; it would have ruined the moral effect of my work. Now

they are calling on me from Washington to stay in that city all

next winter to get our measure considered by Congress, but I ought

to go to work to earn money, for I need it if ever anybody did. If

I have to get it, however, at the cost of losing our golden

opportunity there, it will be too dear a price to pay.

Miss Anthony was correct in her forecast, the suffrage amendment was

defeated in Michigan by more than three to one, but there is no doubt

her able canvass contributed largely to secure "a respectable

minority."

In the summer of 1874 the so-called Beecher-Tilton scandal, which had

been smouldering a long time, burst into full blaze. Miss Anthony had

been for many years on intimate terms with all the parties in this

unfortunate affair, and there was a persistent rumor that she had at

one time received a confession from Mrs. Tilton which, if given by her

to the public, would settle the vexed question beyond a doubt. It is

scarcely possible to describe the pressure brought to bear to force her

to disclose what she knew. During her lecture tours of that summer and

fall, while the trial was in progress before the church committee, she

never entered a railroad car, an omnibus or a hotel but there was

somebody ready to question her. In every town and city she was called

upon for an interview before she had time to brush off the dust of

travel. One of the New York papers detailed a reporter to follow her

from point to point, catch every word she uttered, ferret out all she

said to her friends and in some way extort what was wanted. She often

remarked that "in this case men proved themselves the champion gossips

of the world."

Papers which had befriended her and her cause reminded her of this fact

and urged her to return the favor by telling them what she knew.

Telegrams and letters poured in upon her from strangers and friends,

some commending and begging her to continue silent; others censuring

and urging her to tell the whole story. Lawyers connected with the case

wrote her the shrewdest of pleas, telling her how the other side were

trying to defame her character and urging her to speak in self-defense;

but it is a significant fact that she received no official summons

either during the church committee investigation or the trial in court.

The Chicago Tribune, having failed to secure an interview, said: "Miss

Anthony keeps her own counsel in this matter with a resolution which

would do credit to General Grant." Several papers manufactured

interviews with her out of whole cloth. Everybody else, man or woman,

who had the slightest knowledge of the affair, rushed into print, but

under all the pressure she remained as immovable and silent as the

granite mountains amid which she was born. The universal desire to have

her speak was because of the value placed upon her integrity and

veracity. John Hooker, the eminent lawyer of Hartford, Conn.,

brother-in-law of Mr. Beecher, voiced the opinion of her friends when

he wrote under date of November 9, 1874: "A more truthful person does

not live. The whole world could not get her to go into a conspiracy

against one whom she believed to be innocent. I have perfect confidence

in her truthfulness and always stoutly assert it."

The New York Sun expressed the general sentiment of the press when it

said in this connection: "Miss Anthony is a lady whose word will

everywhere be believed by those who know anything of her character."

Her home paper, the Democrat and Chronicle, paid this tribute: "Whether

she will make any definite revelations remains to be seen, but whatever

she does say will be received by the public with that credit which

attaches to the evidence of a truthful witness. Her own character,

known and honored by the country, will give importance to any

utterances she may make."

Most of the charges made against her during this ordeal were so

manifestly absurd they did not need refuting, but the oft-repeated

assertions that she believed in what was popularly termed "free love"

were a source of great annoyance. In a letter written at this time to

Elizabeth Smith Miller she thus definitely expressed herself: "I have

always believed the 'variety' system vile, and still do so believe. I

am convinced that no one has yet wrought out the true social system. I

am sure no theory can be correct which a mother is not willing for her

daughter to practice. Decent women should not live with licentious

husbands in the relation of wife. As society is now, good, pure women,

by so living, cover up and palliate immorality and help to violate the

law of monogamy. Women must take the social helm into their own hands

and not permit the men of their own circle, any more than the women, to

be transgressors."

To Mr. Hooker, on this same subject, she wrote: "In my heart of hearts

I hate the whole doctrine of 'variety' or 'promiscuity.' I am not even

a believer in second marriages after one of the parties is dead, so

sacred and binding do I consider the marriage relation." A few extracts

from her diary during these days will show the trend of her thoughts: