Susan B. Anthony: Lawbreaker Or Freedom Fighter?

Susan B. Anthony was a prominent American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. In 1872, she was arrested in her hometown of Rochester, New York, for voting in violation of laws that allowed only men to vote. She was convicted in a widely publicised trial, fined $100, and became a symbol of the women's suffrage movement.

Susan B. Anthony's arrest and trial

On November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony, a leader of the women's suffrage movement, and 14 other women attempted to vote in Rochester, New York, challenging section one of the 14th Amendment, which states, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

The women were allowed to register and cast their ballots in the 1872 election but were later arrested and charged for "knowingly, wrongfully, and unlawfully" voting. Anthony was the only one indicted and brought to trial.

The trial, United States v. Susan B. Anthony, began on June 17, 1873, and was closely followed by the national press. Anthony was tried in federal court for violating the Enforcement Act of 1870, which made it a federal crime to vote in congressional elections if the voter was not qualified to vote under state law.

The judge, Ward Hunt, had recently been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court and had never served as a trial judge. He did not allow the jurors to discuss the case but instead directed them to find Anthony guilty. On the final day of the trial, Hunt asked Anthony if she had anything to say. She responded with what has been called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for women's suffrage." Repeatedly ignoring the judge's order to stop talking and sit down, she protested what she called "this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights." She also declared that even if he had allowed the jury to discuss the case, she still would have been denied her right to a trial by a jury of her peers because women were not allowed to be jurors.

When Justice Hunt sentenced Anthony to pay a fine of $100, she responded, "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty," and she never did. Hunt then announced that Anthony would not be jailed for failure to pay the fine, a move that had the effect of preventing her from taking her case to the Supreme Court.

The trial helped make women's suffrage a national issue and was a major step in the transition of the women's rights movement from one that encompassed a number of issues into one that focused primarily on women's suffrage.

The 14th Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed in 1868, affirmed the rights of freed women and men after the Civil War. The law stated that everyone born in the United States, including former slaves, was an American citizen, and that no state could pass a law that took away their rights to "life, liberty, or property".

The Fourteenth Amendment also added the first mention of gender into the Constitution. It declared that all male citizens over twenty-one years old should be able to vote.

Susan B. Anthony, a lifelong advocate for women's rights, and other suffragists sought to convince Congress to strike the gender-specific language in the Fourteenth Amendment. They argued that the Fourteenth Amendment, together with the Fifteenth Amendment, implicitly enfranchised women. The Fifteenth Amendment, passed in 1870, affirmed that the right to vote "shall not be denied…on account of race".

In 1872, Anthony voted in the presidential election in Rochester, New York, in violation of laws that allowed only men to vote. She was arrested and charged with "knowingly and unlawfully" voting. She used her criminal trial as a platform for her views on women's suffrage, refusing to pay the $100 fine levied upon her conviction to gain greater publicity for her cause.

Anthony's trial helped make women's suffrage a national issue. It was a major step in the transition of the women's rights movement from one that encompassed a number of issues into one that focused primarily on women's suffrage.

In 1878, Anthony and her lifelong friend and co-worker in social reform activities, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, arranged for Congress to be presented with an amendment giving women the right to vote. Introduced by Sen. Aaron A. Sargent, it later became known colloquially as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. It was eventually ratified as the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

The 1872 presidential election

Susan B. Anthony was a prominent women's rights activist and leader of the women's suffrage movement. On November 1, 1872, she and her sisters, Guelma, Hannah, and Mary, went to a voter registration office in a nearby barber shop and demanded to be registered. Anthony quoted the Fourteenth Amendment to the election inspectors to justify their demand and threatened to sue the inspectors personally if they refused. The inspectors consulted a local lawyer, who advised them to register the women after they took the standard oaths of registry.

News of the women's registration appeared in the afternoon newspapers, with some calling for the arrest of the inspectors who had registered the women. Other women in Rochester began to register, bringing the total to nearly fifty. On election day, Anthony and fourteen other women from her ward went to the polling place to cast their ballots. Sylvester Lewis, a poll watcher, challenged their right to vote, triggering a requirement that they take an oath stating that they were qualified to vote, which they did. The election inspectors were now in a difficult position, as they were at risk of violating state law if they turned the women away, but also faced punishment for accepting the ballot of an ineligible voter. Ultimately, the inspectors decided to allow the women to vote.

On November 14, warrants were drawn up for the arrest of the women who had voted and the election inspectors who had allowed them to do so. On November 18, a deputy U.S. Marshal came to Anthony's house and arrested her. The other fourteen women who had voted and were subsequently arrested were: Charlotte ("Lottie") B. Anthony, Mary S. Anthony, Ellen S. Baker, Nancy M. Chapman, Hannah M. Chatfield, Jane M. Cogswell, Rhoda DeGarmo, Mary S. Hebard, Susan M. Hough, Margaret Garrigues Leyden, Guelma Anthony McLean, Hannah Anthony Mosher, Mary E. Pulver, and Sarah Cole Truesdale.

Anthony's arrest generated national news, and she used this opportunity to generate publicity for the suffrage movement. She embarked on a speaking tour, delivering a speech entitled "Is it a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?" in 29 towns and villages of Monroe County, New York, where her trial was to be held. She argued that the Fourteenth Amendment gave her the right to vote as a citizen of the United States.

Anthony's trial, United States v. Susan B. Anthony, began on June 17, 1873, and was closely followed by the national press. The judge, Ward Hunt, directed the jury to find Anthony guilty without any deliberation, a move that sparked controversy within the legal community. On the second day of the trial, Hunt asked Anthony if she had anything to say. She responded with what one historian has called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage", protesting what she called "this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights". Hunt sentenced Anthony to pay a fine of $100, which she defiantly refused to pay. Hunt then announced that Anthony would not be jailed for failure to pay the fine, preventing her from taking her case to the Supreme Court.

The trial helped make women's suffrage a national issue and marked a significant step in the transition of the women's rights movement towards a primary focus on women's suffrage.

The right to vote

Susan B. Anthony was a prominent American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. She was arrested in 1872 for voting in violation of laws that allowed only men to vote. She was convicted in a widely publicised trial and fined $100, which she refused to pay.

Anthony's arrest and trial helped make women's suffrage a national issue. It was a major step in the transition of the women's rights movement from one that encompassed a number of issues to one that focused primarily on women's suffrage.

In her speech, "Is it a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?", Anthony argued that the first line of the preamble to the United States Constitution is "We, the people" and not "We, the white male citizens" or even "We, the male citizens." She believed that the Constitution formed a government that is intended to "secure" the "blessings of liberty" for both men and women. Thus, women must be granted the right to vote in order not to make a "mockery" of the way in which citizens protect and defend the "blessings of liberty" within a democratic republican government.

Anthony's actions and speech highlight the importance of voting in a democracy and the meaning of equality. They also raise questions about the responsibility of citizens in a democratic society when faced with unjust laws.

The women's suffrage movement

The campaign for women's suffrage began in earnest in the decades before the Civil War. During the 1820s and '30s, most states had extended the franchise to all white men, regardless of how much money or property they had. At the same time, reform groups were proliferating across the United States—temperance leagues, religious movements, moral-reform societies, and anti-slavery organizations—and in many of these, women played a prominent role.

Many American women were beginning to chafe against what historians have called the "Cult of True Womanhood", the idea that the only "true" woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family. Put together, all of these contributed to a new way of thinking about what it meant to be a woman and a citizen of the United States.

In 1848, a group of abolitionist activists—mostly women, but some men—gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, to discuss the problem of women's rights. They were invited there by the reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Most of the delegates to the Seneca Falls Convention agreed: American women were autonomous individuals who deserved their own political identities.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident," proclaimed the Declaration of Sentiments that the delegates produced, "that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What this meant, among other things, was that they believed women should have the right to vote.

In the early 1800s, there was little demand for the right to vote in the movement's early days, when the focus was on such issues as the right of women to speak in public settings and on property rights for married women. At the first women's rights convention, the Seneca Falls Convention, the only resolution that did not pass unanimously was the one that called for women's suffrage. Originated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was just beginning her career as a suffrage leader, the resolution was adopted only after Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist leader and a former slave, gave it his strong support. That convention helped to popularize the idea of women suffrage, and by the time of the first National Women's Rights Convention in 1850, suffrage was becoming a generally accepted part of the movement's goals.

Women began to attempt to vote. In Vineland, New Jersey, a center for radical spiritualists, nearly 200 women placed their ballots into a separate box and attempted to have them counted during the 1868 elections, but without success. Lucy Stone, a leader of the women's rights movement who lived nearby, attempted to vote soon afterward, also without success.

In 1869, Francis and Virginia Minor, husband and wife suffragists from Missouri, developed a strategy that became known as the New Departure, which engaged the suffrage movement for several years. This strategy was based on the belief that the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, together with the pending Fifteenth Amendment, implicitly enfranchised women. The primary purpose of these amendments was to establish the newly freed slaves as citizens with voting rights. In the process of doing so, these amendments defined citizenship in a way that clearly included women, prohibited the states from abridging "the privileges or immunities of citizens", and transferred partial control over voting rights from the state to the federal level.

Finally, on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

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