The History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 92

Judge HUNT: The Court can not listen to a rehearsal of arguments 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 rights 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 cla.s.s 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: All my prosecutors, from the 8th Ward 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, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, awake or asleep, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior; hence, in no sense, my peer.

Even, under such circ.u.mstances, a commoner of England, tried before a jury of lords, would have far less cause to complain than should I, a woman, tried before a jury of men. Even my counsel, the 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 ent.i.tled to sit upon a jury, and no woman is ent.i.tled 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, must all be of the superior cla.s.s.

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 "that 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, for you, or me, or any of us, to give a cup of cold water, a crust of bread, or a night's shelter to a panting fugitive as he was 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 must take it over, or under, or through the unjust forms of law, precisely so now must women, to get their right to a voice in this Government, take it; and I have taken mine, and mean to take it at every possible 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 Const.i.tution and its recent amendments, that should declare all United States citizens under its protecting aegis--that 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 rigors of the law.

Judge HUNT: The Court must insist-- (Here the prisoner sat down.)

Judge HUNT: The prisoner will stand up. (Here Miss Anthony arose again.) The sentence of the Court is that you pay a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the prosecution.

Miss ANTHONY: May it please your honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. All the stock in trade I possess is a $10,000 debt, incurred by publis.h.i.+ng my paper--_The Revolution_--four years ago, the sole object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your man-made, unjust, unconst.i.tutional forms of law, that tax, fine, imprison, and hang women, while they deny them the right of representation in the Government; and I shall 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, that "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to G.o.d."

Judge HUNT: Madam, the Court will not order you committed until the fine is paid.

Immediately after the verdict, Miss Anthony, her counsel, her friends, and the jury, pa.s.sed out together talking over the case. Said Judge Selden: "The war has abolished something besides slavery, it has abolished jury trial. The decision of Justice Hunt was most iniquitous. He had as much right to order me hung to the nearest tree, as to take the case from the jury and render the decision he did," and he bowed his head with shame at this prost.i.tution of legal power.

The jury with freedom now to use their tongues, when too late, also canva.s.sed the trial and the injury done. "The verdict of guilty would not have been mine, could I have spoken," said one, "nor should I have been alone. There were others who thought as I did, but we could not speak."

The decision of Judge Hunt was severely criticised.[172] Even among those who believed women had no right to vote, and who did not hesitate to say that Miss Anthony's punishment was inadequate, there was a wide questioning as to his legal right to take the case from the jury and enter the verdict of guilty, without permitting them in any way to indicate their opinion. It was deemed a tyrannical and arrogant a.s.sumption on the part of Judge Hunt, and one which endangered the rights of the whole people. It was pertinently asked, "If this may be done in one instance, why not in all?" and "If the courts may thus arbitrarily direct what verdicts shall be rendered, what becomes of the right to trial by an impartial jury, which the Const.i.tution guarantees to all persons alike, whether male or female?" These questions were of the gravest importance, and the more so because from this court there was no appeal. To deprive Miss Anthony of the benefit of jury trial seemed, however, in unison with every step taken in the cases of women under the XIV. Amendment.

The design of the Government was evidently to crush at once, and arbitrarily, all efforts of women for equality of rights with men. The principles of law and justice involved did not, however, apply to women alone, but to all persons alike. Where the rights of the most insignificant or humble are outraged those of all are endangered. The decisions in these cases are the more remarkable since they were based on the most ultra State Rights doctrine, and yet were rendered in every instance by members of the Republican party which held its position by reason of its recent success against the extreme demands of State sovereignty. The right of women to vote under national protection was but the logical result of the political guarantees of the war, and Republican leaders should have been anxious to clinch their war record by legislative and judicial decisions.

But a more thorough recognition of the State Rights theory never was presented than in the proceedings of this Judge of the Supreme Court in his verdict against Miss Anthony, nor a more absolute exhibition of National power in State affairs than his decision in the case of the Inspectors, who were State officers, working under State authority and State laws, and not under authority derived from the Const.i.tution of the United States, but who were tried by an United States judge, and punished for what was held as a crime against the State of New York--a monstrous usurpation of National authority! Each of these trials was, in its way, an example of authority overriding law, and an evidence of the danger to the liberties of the people from a practically irresponsible judiciary. Men need to feel their indebtedness and their responsibility to those who place them in position; first, in order to preserve them from despotism; and, second, that they may be removed when infirmity demands the subst.i.tution of a competent person in their place.

Although for a period little has been said in regard to the usurpations of the judiciary, a time will come in the history of the country when the course of Justice Hunt will be recalled as a dangerous precedent.

It was more than a year after Miss Anthony's trial was completed before her case received notice in the chief legal journal of the State of New York. At that time, in an article ent.i.tled, "Can a Judge Direct a Verdict of Guilty?"[173] Judge Hunt's course in refusing to poll the jury was reviewed and condemned as contrary to justice and law. To Mrs. Gage's review of this article, the _Law Journal_ said, "If Mrs. Gage and Miss Anthony are not pleased with our laws, they had better emigrate." This would make real, in case of woman, Edward Everett Hale's story of the "Man Without a Country." Women are, by this advice, a.s.sumed to have no country; to be living in the United States upon sufferance, a species of useful aliens, which possesses no rights that man is bound to respect, which are not to be permitted to vote, nor even to protest when the dearest rights are trampled upon.

While admitting that Justice Hunt usurped power in taking the case from the jury, the Albany _Law Journal_ expressed a desire that it should have gone to the jury, not on the ground of legal right, but on the ground that the jury would have brought in a verdict of guilty.

But had the case been allowed to go to the jury, no verdict of guilty would have been rendered. The _jury_ did not believe the defendant guilty, but they were not permitted to give their opinion. Their opinions counted for nothing; they were wronged as well as Miss Anthony.

It was said of the infamous Lord Jeffries, that when pre-determined upon a conviction he always wore a red cap. In such cases juries were useless appendages to his court. Justice Hunt, through this trial, wore an invisible red cap which only came into view at its close.

The effect of Miss Anthony's prosecution, conviction, and sentence, was in many ways advantageous to the cause of freedom. Her trial served to awaken thought, promote discussion, and compel an investigation of the principles of government. The argument of Judge Selden, clearly proving woman's const.i.tutional right to vote, published[174] in all the leading papers, arrested the attention of legal minds as no popular discussions had done.

Thus the question of the abstract rights of each individual, their civil and political rights under State and National Const.i.tutions, were widely discussed. And when the verdict, contrary to law, was rendered by the Judge, and the jury dismissed without having been permitted to utter a word, the whole question of woman's rights and wrongs was brought into new prominence through this infringement of the sacred right of jury trial.

A _nolle prosequi_ was entered for the women who voted with Miss Anthony. Immediately after the decision in her case, the trial of the Inspectors took place before the same court. This was in reality a continuation of the same question--a citizen's right to vote--and like that of Miss Anthony's was a legal farce, the decision in this case evidently having also been pre-determined. The indictment stated that:

Beverly W. Jones, Edwin T. Marsh, and William B. Hall, Inspectors of Election in and for said first election district of said eight ward of said city of Rochester, etc., did then and there knowingly and willfully register as a voter of said District, one Susan B. Anthony, she, said Susan B. Anthony, then and there not being ent.i.tled to be registered as a voter of said District in that she, said Susan B. Anthony was then and there a person of the female s.e.x, 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.

Although the above indictment may have been legal in form, it clearly proved the inadequacy of man alone to frame just laws, holding, as it did, Susan B. Anthony to be "then and there a person of the female s.e.x, contrary to the form of the statutes of the United States of America," etc.

Witnesses were first called on behalf of the United States; during whose examination it was again conceded that the women named in the indictment were women on the 5th day of November, 1872, thus again clearly showing the animus of these trials to be against s.e.x--making s.e.x a crime in the eye of United States laws. While the right to testify in her own behalf was denied to Miss Anthony it was granted to the Inspectors of election.

Beverly W. Jones, and each of the other defendants, was duly sworn as a witness in his own behalf, and Susan B. Anthony was called as a witness in behalf of the defendants.

Miss ANTHONY: I would like to know if the testimony of a person who has been convicted of a crime can be taken?

The COURT: They call you as a witness, madam.

The witness, having been duly affirmed, testified as follows:

_Examined by_ Mr. VAN VOORHIS:

_Q._ Miss Anthony, I want you to state what occurred at the Board of Registry, when your name was registered? _A._ That would be very tedious, for it was full an hour.

_Q._ State generally what was done, or what occupied that hour's time?

Objected to.

_Q._ Well, was the question of your right to be registered a subject of discussion there? _A._ It was.

_Q._ By and between whom? _A._ Between the supervisors, the inspectors, and myself.

_Q._ State, if you please, what occurred when you presented yourself at the polls on election day? _A._ Mr. Hall decidedly objected--

Mr. CROWLEY: I submit to the Court that unless the counsel expects to change the version given by the other witnesses, it is not necessary to take up time.

The COURT: As a matter of discretion, I don't see how it will be any benefit. It was fully related by the others, and doubtless correctly.

Mr. CROWLEY: It is not disputed.

The WITNESS: I would like to say, if I might be allowed by the Court, that the general impression that I swore I was a male citizen, is an erroneous one.

Mr. VAN VOORHIS: You took the two oaths there, did you? _A._ Yes, sir.

The COURT: You presented yourself as a female, claiming that you had a right to vote? _A._ I presented myself not as a female at all, sir; I presented myself as a citizen of the United States. I was called to the United States ballot-box by the XIV. Amendment, not as a female, but as a citizen, and I went there.

Miss Anthony's emphatic reply and intimation that, although a condemned criminal for having voted, she still believed in her citizens.h.i.+p as securing that right to her, closed the lips of the Court, and she was summarily dismissed from the witness-box, and the case rested.

Mr. Van Voorhis addressed the Court at some length, submitting that there was no ground whatever to charge these defendants (the Inspectors) with any criminal offense,

1. Because the women who voted were legal voters. 2. Because they were challenged and took the oaths which the statute requires of Electors, and the Inspectors had no right, after such oath, to reject their votes. 3. Because no malice is shown. Whether the women were ent.i.tled to have their names registered and to vote, or not, the defendants believed they had such right, and acted in good faith, according to their best judgment, in allowing the registry of their names--and in receiving their votes--and whether they decided right or wrong in point of law, they are not guilty of any criminal offense.