Читать книгу The Women of the Suffrage Movement - Jane Addams - Страница 59

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National Convention declares women enfranchised under Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments; Miss Anthony sustains this position before Senate Judiciary Committee; friends in Rochester present testimonial; she reads in Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly call to form New Party under auspices of National Suffrage Association; her indignant remonstrance; hastens to New York and prevents coalition; Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati refuses to adopt Suffrage resolution; Miss Anthony's comment; Republican Convention at Philadelphia makes first mention of Woman; Mr. Blackwell's and Miss Anthony's letters regarding this; Democratic Convention at Baltimore ignores Woman; Hon. John Cochran tells how not to do it; Miss Anthony and Mrs. Gage urge women to support Republican ticket; Miss Anthony states her Political Position; her delight and Mrs. Stanton's doubts; letter from Henry Wilson; Republican Committee summons her to Washington; she arranges series of Republican rallies; sustains party only on Suffrage plank; Miss Anthony Votes; newspaper comment; she is arrested; examination before U.S. Commissioner; Judge Henry R. Selden and Hon. John Van Voorhis undertake her case; Rochester Express defends her; letter on case from Benjamin F. Butler.

The leading women in the movement for suffrage, supported by some of the ablest constitutional lawyers in the country, continued to claim the right to vote under the following:

URTEENTH AMENDMENT, JULY 28, 1868.

SECTION 1. 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.

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, MARCH 30, 1870.

SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Many of the Republican leaders admitted that these amendments might be construed to include women, but were silenced by the cry of "party expediency." The fear of defeating the attempt to enfranchise the colored male citizen made them refuse to add the word "sex" to the Fifteenth Amendment, which would have placed this question beyond debate and put an end to the agitation that has continued for thirty years. The women insisted that the exigency which compelled the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment by the various State legislatures was strong enough to carry it, even with the word "sex" included. Having failed to gain this point, the National Association determined to maintain the position that women were already enfranchised, and embodied it in the call for the Washington convention of 1872: "All those interested in woman's enfranchisement are invited to consider the 'new departure'—women already citizens, and their rights as such secured by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution."

The same position was re-asserted in the resolutions adopted at that meeting, which declared that "while the Constitution of the United States leaves the qualifications of electors to the various States, it nowhere gives them the right to deprive any citizen of the elective franchise which is possessed by any other citizen; the right to regulate not including the right to prohibit the franchise;" that "those provisions of the several State constitutions which exclude women from the franchise on account of sex, are violative alike of the letter and spirit of the Federal Constitution;" and that "as the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution have established the right of women to the elective franchise, we demand of the present Congress a declaratory act which shall secure us at once in the exercise of this right."

Miss Anthony and other leaders officially asked the privilege of addressing the Senate and House upon this momentous question. This was refused, as contrary to precedent, but a hearing was granted before the Senate Judiciary Committee,1 Friday morning, January 12. Not only the committee room but the corridors were crowded. Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker spoke grandly,2 and as usual Miss Anthony was chosen to clinch the argument, which she did as follows:

You already have had logic and Constitution; I shall refer, therefore, to existing facts. Prior to the war the plan of extending suffrage was by State action, and it was our boast that the National Constitution did not contain a word which could be construed into a barrier against woman's right to vote. But at the close of the war Congress lifted the question of suffrage for men above State power, and by the amendments prohibited the deprivation of suffrage to any citizen by any State. When the Fourteenth Amendment was first proposed in Congress, we rushed to you with petitions praying you not to insert the word "male" in the second clause. Our best friends on the floor of Congress said to us: "The insertion of that word puts up no new barrier against woman; therefore do not embarrass us but wait until we get the negro question settled." So the Fourteenth Amendment with the word "male" was adopted.

Then, when the Fifteenth was presented without the word "sex," we again petitioned and protested, and again our friends declared that the absence of that word was no hindrance to us, and again begged us to wait until they had finished the work of the war. "After we have enfranchised the negro we will take up your case." Have they done as they promised? When we come asking protection under the new guarantees of the Constitution, the same men say to us that our only plan is to wait the action of Congress and State legislatures in the adoption of a Sixteenth Amendment which shall make null and void the word "male" in the Fourteenth, and supply the want of the word "sex" in the Fifteenth. Such tantalizing treatment imposed upon yourselves or any class of men would have caused rebellion and in the end a bloody revolution. It is only the close relations existing between the sexes which have prevented any such result from this injustice to women.

Gentlemen, I should be sure of your decision could you but realize the fact that we, who have been battling for our rights now more than twenty years, feel precisely as you would under such circumstances. One of the most ardent lovers of freedom (Senator Sumner) said to me two winters ago, after our hearing before the committee of the District: "I never realized before that you or any woman could feel the disgrace, the degradation of disfranchisement precisely as I should if my fellow-citizens had conspired to deprive me of my right to vote." Although I am a Quaker and take no oath, yet I have made a most solemn "affirmation" that I will never again beg my rights, but will come to Congress each year and demand the recognition of them under the guarantees of the National Constitution.

What we ask of the Republican party is simply to take down its own bars. The facts in Wyoming show how it is that a Republican party can exist in that Territory. Before women voted, there was never a Republican elected to office; after their enfranchisement, the first election sent one Republican to Congress and seven to the Territorial Legislature. Thus the nucleus of a Republican party there was formed through the enfranchisement of women. The Democrats, seeing this, are now determined to disfranchise them. Can you Republicans so utterly stultify yourselves, can you so entirely work against yourselves, as to refuse us a declaratory law? We pray you to report immediately, as Mrs. Hooker has said, "favorably, if you can; adversely, if you must." We can wait no longer.

The committee reported adversely on the question of woman's right to vote under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

At the close of the convention, Miss Anthony hastened to her home in Rochester, which she had not seen since her departure to California eight months before. Soon after her arrival she was invited to meet a number of her acquaintances at the home of her dear friend, Amy Post, and give them an account of her experiences on the Pacific slope. At its conclusion she was surprised by the presentation of a purse containing $50, with a touching address by Mrs. Post asking her to accept it as a testimonial of the appreciation in which her friends and neighbors held her work for woman and humanity. At the same time she received a gift of money from Sarah Pugh, in an envelope marked, "For thine own dear self." In her acknowledgment she says:

The tears started when I read your sweet letter. Were it not for the loving sympathy and confidence of the little handful of ever-faithful such as you, my spirit, I fear, would have fainted long ago. There are yourself, dear Lucretia and her equally dear sister, Martha, who never fail to know just the moment when my purse is drained to the bottom and to drop the needed dollar into it. It is really wonderful how I have been carried through all these years financially. I often feel that Elijah's being fed by the ravens was no more miraculous than my being furnished with the means to do the great work which has been for the past twenty years continuously presenting itself—yes, presenting itself, for it has always come to me. My thought has been to escape the hardships but they come ever and always, and so I try to accept the situation and work my way through as best I can.

She was soon off again, lecturing in various cities and towns, going as far west as Nebraska. Early in April, while waiting at a little railroad station in Illinois, a gentleman came in and handed her a copy of Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly containing this double-leaded announcement:

The undersigned citizens of the United States, responding to the invitation of the National Woman Suffrage Association, propose to hold a convention at Steinway Hall, in the city of New York, the 9th and 10th of May. We believe the time has come for the formation of a new political party whose principles shall meet the issues of the hour and represent equal rights for all. As women of the country are to take part for the first time in political action, we propose that the initiative steps in the convention shall be taken by them.... This convention will declare the platform of the People's party, and consider the nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, who shall be the best possible exponents of political and industrial reform....

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON,	SUSAN E. ANTHONY,
ISABELLA B. HOOKER,	MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE.

It was followed by the call of Mrs. Woodhull and others for a delegate convention to form a new party. Miss Anthony was thunderstruck. Not only had she no knowledge of this action, but she was thoroughly opposed both to the forming of a new party and to the National Association's having any share in such a proceeding. She immediately telegraphed an order to have her name removed from the call, and wrote back indignant letters of protest against involving the association in such an affair. A month prior to this, on March 13, she had written Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker from Leavenworth:

We have no element out of which to make a political party, because there is not a man who would vote a woman suffrage ticket if thereby he endangered his Republican, Democratic, Workingmen's or Temperance party, and all our time and words in that direction are simply thrown away. My name must not be used to call any such meeting. I will do all I can to support either of the leading parties which may adopt a woman suffrage plank or nominee; but no one of them wants to do anything for us, while each would like to use us....

I tell you I feel utterly disheartened—not that our cause is going to die or be defeated, but as to my place and work. Mrs. Woodhull has the advantage of us because she has the newspaper, and she persistently means to run our craft into her port and none other. If she were influenced by women spirits, either in the body or out of it, in the direction she steers, I might consent to be a mere sail-hoister for her; but as it is, she is wholly owned and dominated by men spirits and I spurn the control of the whole lot of them, just precisely the same when reflected through her woman's tongue and pen as if they spoke directly for themselves.

After sending this letter she had supposed the question settled until she saw this notice, hence her anger and dismay can be imagined.

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.

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 fifteen3 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;4 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.5 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.

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.

1. Present, Lyman Trumbull, Illinois, chairman; Roscoe Conkling, New York; F.F. Frelinghuysen, New Jersey; Matthew H. Carpenter, Wisconsin.

2. See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II.

3. 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).

4. 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.

5. 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."