The United States vs. Susan B. Anthony
On this day November 5th in 1872 (142 years ago today) it was election day in the United States. President Ulysses S. Grant was running for re-election. One of the candidates running against him was Victoria Woodhull of the Equal Rights Party, the first woman to run for President of the United States. Susan B. Anthony did what most good citizens would do on election day, she went to her polling station in Rochester, New York, to cast her ballot. There was only one problem with all of this: in 1872 women did not yet have the right to vote in presidential elections. That wouldn't happen until 38 years later in 1920.
In 1871, the National Women's Suffrage Association (NWSA) held its convention and resolved to pursue a strategy of having women to attempt to vote, and then, after being turned away, to file suits in federal courts demanding that their right to vote be recognized. The legal basis for the challenge would be the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which provided as follows:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Emboldened by this amendment, Susan B. Anthony and nearly fifty other women from Rochester, New York attempted to vote in the presidential election of 1872. Fifteen of them convinced the election inspectors to allow them to cast ballots, but the others were turned back. There had been earlier cases of women attempting to vote, and even some cases of success, but up to that point, the reaction of the authorities had been not to be overly concerned about the issue. But when a high profile suffragette like Susan B. Anthony voted, the reaction was different. Her case drew national attention.
Anthony was arrested on November 18, 1872 and she was charged with illegally voting. The other fourteen women were also arrested but released pending the outcome of Anthony's trial. In advance of the trial. Anthony embarked on a speaking tour of Monroe County, where her trial would be held. She spoke in all 29 towns and villages in the county and asked her audiences "Is it a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?" She argued that the Fourteenth Amendment gave her that right, proclaiming, "We no longer petition legislature or Congress to give us the right to vote, but appeal to women everywhere to exercise their too long neglected 'citizen's right'". The speech she gave speech was printed in its entirety in one of the Rochester daily newspapers
The district attorney for the county was Worried that Anthony's speeches would influence the jury. He applied to have the trial moved to the federal circuit court. The court that would hear the trial would sit in neighboring Ontario County. Anthony responded by speaking in every village in that county also before the trial began.
Justice Ward Hunt had recently been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but he was responsible for the assignment of trial judges in that circuit. Hunt had never served as a trial judge. He was a politician who began his judicial career by being elected to the New York Court of Appeals. Hunt assigned himself the job of trial judge for the high profile case.
The trial began on July 17, 1873, and was closely followed by the national press. The New York Times reported that, "It was conceded that the defendant was, on the 5th November, 1872, a woman." Following a rule of common law at that time which prevented criminal defendants in federal courts from testifying, Hunt refused to allow Anthony to speak until the verdict had been delivered. On the second day of the trial, after both sides had presented their cases, Justice Hunt delivered his opinion. He directed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict.
On the third day of the trial, Hunt asked Anthony whether she had anything to say. It is an understatement to say that she did indeed have something to say. She responded with what has been called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage" by Ann D. Gordon, a historian of the women's movement. She called the verdict "this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights" and told Justice Hunt that he had "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." She criticized Justice Hunt for denying her a trial by jury, and said that even if he had allowed the jury to discuss the case, she still would have been denied 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!" She never did. Hunt realized that if he had ordered her to be imprisoned until she paid the fine, Anthony could have appealed her case to the Supreme Court. Hunt instead announced he would not order her taken into custody, in order to prevent an appeal.
Three years later, in the case of Minor v. Happersett, the U.S. Supreme Court held that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone". This left the NWSA with its only option of campaigning for a constitutional amendment to guarantee voting rights for women.
As for Presidential Candidate Victoria Woodhull, things didn't go well for her in the campaign. She was vilified in the media for her support of free love. In the November 2, 1872 edition of her publication Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, she wrote about an alleged adulterous affair between Elizabeth Tilton and Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent Protestant minister in New York. She wrote the article to highlight what she saw as a sexual double-standard between men and women. That same day, three days before the presidential election, Federal Marshals arrested Woodhull, her second husband Colonel James Blood, and her sister Tennie C. Claflin on charges of "publishing an obscene newspaper" because of the content of this article. The sisters were held in the Ludlow Street Jail for the next month, a place normally reserved for civil offenses, but which contained more hardened criminals as well. The three were acquitted at trial six months later, but the arrest prevented Woodhull from attempting to vote during the 1872 presidential election. Needless to say, her candidacy was never a threat to Grant's re-election.
In 1871, the National Women's Suffrage Association (NWSA) held its convention and resolved to pursue a strategy of having women to attempt to vote, and then, after being turned away, to file suits in federal courts demanding that their right to vote be recognized. The legal basis for the challenge would be the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which provided as follows:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Emboldened by this amendment, Susan B. Anthony and nearly fifty other women from Rochester, New York attempted to vote in the presidential election of 1872. Fifteen of them convinced the election inspectors to allow them to cast ballots, but the others were turned back. There had been earlier cases of women attempting to vote, and even some cases of success, but up to that point, the reaction of the authorities had been not to be overly concerned about the issue. But when a high profile suffragette like Susan B. Anthony voted, the reaction was different. Her case drew national attention.
Anthony was arrested on November 18, 1872 and she was charged with illegally voting. The other fourteen women were also arrested but released pending the outcome of Anthony's trial. In advance of the trial. Anthony embarked on a speaking tour of Monroe County, where her trial would be held. She spoke in all 29 towns and villages in the county and asked her audiences "Is it a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?" She argued that the Fourteenth Amendment gave her that right, proclaiming, "We no longer petition legislature or Congress to give us the right to vote, but appeal to women everywhere to exercise their too long neglected 'citizen's right'". The speech she gave speech was printed in its entirety in one of the Rochester daily newspapers
The district attorney for the county was Worried that Anthony's speeches would influence the jury. He applied to have the trial moved to the federal circuit court. The court that would hear the trial would sit in neighboring Ontario County. Anthony responded by speaking in every village in that county also before the trial began.
Justice Ward Hunt had recently been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but he was responsible for the assignment of trial judges in that circuit. Hunt had never served as a trial judge. He was a politician who began his judicial career by being elected to the New York Court of Appeals. Hunt assigned himself the job of trial judge for the high profile case.
The trial began on July 17, 1873, and was closely followed by the national press. The New York Times reported that, "It was conceded that the defendant was, on the 5th November, 1872, a woman." Following a rule of common law at that time which prevented criminal defendants in federal courts from testifying, Hunt refused to allow Anthony to speak until the verdict had been delivered. On the second day of the trial, after both sides had presented their cases, Justice Hunt delivered his opinion. He directed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict.
On the third day of the trial, Hunt asked Anthony whether she had anything to say. It is an understatement to say that she did indeed have something to say. She responded with what has been called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage" by Ann D. Gordon, a historian of the women's movement. She called the verdict "this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights" and told Justice Hunt that he had "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." She criticized Justice Hunt for denying her a trial by jury, and said that even if he had allowed the jury to discuss the case, she still would have been denied 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!" She never did. Hunt realized that if he had ordered her to be imprisoned until she paid the fine, Anthony could have appealed her case to the Supreme Court. Hunt instead announced he would not order her taken into custody, in order to prevent an appeal.
Three years later, in the case of Minor v. Happersett, the U.S. Supreme Court held that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone". This left the NWSA with its only option of campaigning for a constitutional amendment to guarantee voting rights for women.
As for Presidential Candidate Victoria Woodhull, things didn't go well for her in the campaign. She was vilified in the media for her support of free love. In the November 2, 1872 edition of her publication Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, she wrote about an alleged adulterous affair between Elizabeth Tilton and Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent Protestant minister in New York. She wrote the article to highlight what she saw as a sexual double-standard between men and women. That same day, three days before the presidential election, Federal Marshals arrested Woodhull, her second husband Colonel James Blood, and her sister Tennie C. Claflin on charges of "publishing an obscene newspaper" because of the content of this article. The sisters were held in the Ludlow Street Jail for the next month, a place normally reserved for civil offenses, but which contained more hardened criminals as well. The three were acquitted at trial six months later, but the arrest prevented Woodhull from attempting to vote during the 1872 presidential election. Needless to say, her candidacy was never a threat to Grant's re-election.