Susan B. Anthony: Breaking Laws, Changing History

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. This was a major step in the transition of the broader women's rights movement from one that encompassed a number of issues into one that focused primarily on women's suffrage.

Anthony was tried in a U.S. federal court and found guilty by a jury of twelve men. She was fined $100, which she refused to pay, and the judge did not order her to be jailed, preventing her from taking her case to the Supreme Court.

The trial received national press coverage and brought the issue of women's suffrage to the forefront of public debate. It also highlighted the injustice of denying women the right to vote and served as a catalyst for further activism and legal challenges in the pursuit of equal voting rights for women.

Susan B. Anthony voted illegally in the 1872 elections

Susan B. Anthony was arrested in her hometown of Rochester, New York, for voting in the 1872 elections. She was a well-known activist for women's suffrage and had been campaigning for women's right to vote for five decades.

In the run-up to the 1872 election, Anthony and her sisters went to a voter registration office in a barber shop and demanded to be registered. Anthony quoted the Fourteenth Amendment to the election inspectors, which states that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States". She also threatened to sue the inspectors personally if they refused. The inspectors consulted a lawyer, who advised them to register the women after they took the standard oaths of registry.

On election day, November 5, Anthony and fourteen other women from her ward went to the polling place to cast their ballots. A poll watcher challenged their right to vote, but the election inspectors allowed the women to vote. Anthony had not expected to be able to vote and had planned to be turned away so that she could then file a suit in federal court for her right to vote.

Two weeks later, on November 18, Anthony was arrested at her home by a US marshal. She was tried in June 1873 and found guilty by a jury of twelve men. She was fined $100, which she refused to pay. The judge did not sentence her to prison, which prevented her from taking her case to the Supreme Court.

The trial of Susan B. Anthony brought national attention to the women's suffrage movement and was a significant step in the transition of the women's rights movement into a movement focused primarily on women's suffrage.

She was arrested and tried in a US federal court

Susan B. Anthony was arrested and tried in a US federal court for violating state laws that allowed only men to vote. The trial, United States v. Susan B. Anthony, began on June 17, 1873, in Canandaigua, New York, and was closely followed by the national press.

The case was heard by Justice Ward Hunt, a recently appointed US Supreme Court Justice who had responsibility for the federal circuit court in which the trial was held. Hunt had never served as a trial judge and, in a controversial move, 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 one historian of the women's movement has 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 protested the injustice of denying women the right to vote, stating:

> "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."

When Justice Hunt sentenced Anthony to pay a fine of $100, she defiantly said that she would never do so. 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.

She was denied the right to a trial by jury

Susan B. Anthony was denied the right to a trial by jury. She was arrested in 1872 for voting in violation of laws that allowed only men to vote. The judge, Ward Hunt, was a recently appointed U.S. Supreme Court Justice who had responsibility for the federal circuit court in which the trial was held. 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. Anthony, who had not previously been permitted to speak, responded with what has been called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for women's suffrage". She protested what she called "this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights". She castigated Justice Hunt for denying her a trial by jury. 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.

The denial of a trial by jury was not the only injustice Anthony faced during the trial. Hunt had written his verdict before the trial had begun. Through her attorney, Anthony requested permission to testify on her own behalf, but Hunt denied her request. Instead, he followed a rule of common law at the time, which prevented criminal defendants in federal courts from testifying. Hunt's decision to direct the jury to find Anthony guilty—without allowing the jurors to deliberate and without polling them—was so egregious that lawyers, politicians, and the press spoke out against his violation of the constitutional guarantee of a trial by jury.

Anthony was found guilty and fined $100, which she refused to pay. 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. Hunt's decision to deny Anthony a trial by jury and his directed verdict created a controversy within the legal community that lasted for years. In 1882, a month after Justice Hunt's retirement from the Supreme Court, a circuit court judge ruled that it was wrong for a judge to direct a jury to deliver a guilty verdict. In 1895, in Sparf v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal judge could not direct a jury to return a guilty verdict in a criminal trial.

She was fined $100, which she never paid

Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for breaking the law and voting illegally in the 1872 elections. She was a prominent women's rights activist and leader of the women's suffrage movement. She was arrested two weeks after casting her ballot, tried, and convicted the following year.

Anthony refused to pay the fine, declaring, "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty." By not paying the fine, she was unable to take her case to the Supreme Court, as she would have been able to do if she had been sentenced to jail time. The judge, Ward Hunt, was aware of this and purposely chose not to sentence her to prison time, blocking her from taking the case further.

Anthony's trial brought national attention to the women's suffrage movement and was a significant step in the transition of the broader women's rights movement into a movement focused primarily on women's suffrage. It also sparked controversy within the legal community, which lasted for years, over the denial of Anthony's right to a trial by jury.

Despite not paying the fine, Anthony faced no further legal consequences. The authorities declined to take any action, and she was never jailed. This outcome may have been influenced by the public sympathy for Anthony and the other women who voted, as well as the election inspectors who allowed them to vote and were also arrested and fined.

She was blocked from taking her case to the Supreme Court

Susan B. Anthony was blocked from taking her case to the Supreme Court. She was found guilty and fined $100, which she refused to pay. The judge, Justice Hunt, did not sentence her to prison, which would have allowed her to file a writ of habeas corpus to gain a hearing before the Supreme Court. Hunt's decision to direct the jury to find Anthony guilty without allowing them to deliberate and without polling them was highly controversial. This prevented her from taking her case further, despite her attempts to petition Congress to review the trial and excuse her fine.

The trial of Susan B. Anthony brought national attention to the women's suffrage movement and was a significant 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. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) continued to pursue the strategy of taking voting rights cases to court, but it was Virginia Minor, one of the originators of this strategy, who eventually succeeded in taking a case to the Supreme Court. In 1875, the Supreme Court ruled in Minor v. Happersett that the Constitution did not implicitly support women's suffrage, stating that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone". This ended the strategy of trying to achieve women's suffrage through the courts, and the NWSA adopted the far more challenging approach of campaigning for a constitutional amendment.

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