An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony | Page 8

been
guilty of violating the law, she must submit to the penalty, however
unjust or absurd the law may be. But courts are not required to so
interpret laws or constitutions as to produce either absurdity or injustice,

so long as they are open to a more reasonable interpretation. This must
be my excuse for what I design to say in regard to the propriety of
female suffrage, because with that propriety established there is very
little difficulty in finding sufficient warrant in the constitution for its
exercise.
This case, in its legal aspects, presents three questions, which I purpose
to discuss.
1. Was the defendant legally entitled to vote at the election in question?
2. If she was not entitled to vote, but believed that she was, and voted
in good faith in that belief, did such voting constitute a crime under the
statute before referred to?
3. Did the defendant vote in good faith in that belief?
If the first question be decided in accordance with my views, the other
questions become immaterial; if the second be decided adversely to my
views, the first and third become immaterial. The two first are
questions of law to be decided by the court, the other is a question for
the jury.
[The Judge here suggested that the argument should be confined to the
legal questions, and the argument on the other question suspended,
until his opinion on those questions should be made known. This
suggestion was assented to, and the counsel proceeded.]
My first position is that the defendant had the same right to vote as any
other citizen who voted at that election.
Before proceeding to the discussion of the purely legal question, I
desire, as already intimated, to pay some attention to the propriety and
justice of the rule which I claim to have been established by the
Constitution.
Miss Anthony, and those united with her in demanding the right of
suffrage, claim, and with a strong appearance of justice, that upon the

principles upon which our government is founded, and which lie at the
basis of all just government, every citizen has a right to take part, upon
equal terms with every other citizen, in the formation and
administration of government. This claim on the part of the female sex
presents a question the magnitude of which is not well appreciated by
the writers and speakers who treat it with ridicule. Those engaged in the
movement are able, sincere and earnest women, and they will not be
silenced by such ridicule, nor even by the villainous caricatures of Nast.
On the contrary, they justly place all those things to the account of the
wrongs which they think their sex has suffered. They believe, with an
intensity of feeling which men who have not associated with them have
not yet learned, that their sex has not had, and has not now, its just and
true position in the organization of government and society. They may
be wrong in their position, but they will not be content until their
arguments are fairly, truthfully and candidly answered.
In the most celebrated document which has been put forth on this side
of the Atlantic, our ancestors declared that "governments derive their
just powers from the consent of the governed."
Blackstone says, "The lawfulness of punishing such criminals (i.e.,
persons offending merely against the laws of society) is founded upon
this principle: that the law by which they suffer was made by their own
consent; it is a part of the original contract into which they entered
when first they engaged in society; it was calculated for and has long
contributed to their own security."
Quotations, to an unlimited extent, containing similar doctrines from
eminent writers, both English and American, on government, from the
time of John Locke to the present day, might be made. Without
adopting this doctrine which bases the rightfulness of government upon
the consent of the governed, I claim that there is implied in it the
narrower and unassailable principle that all citizens of a State, who are
bound by its laws, are entitled to an equal voice in the making and
execution of such laws. The doctrine is well stated by Godwin in his
treatise on Political Justice. He says: "The first and most important
principle that can be imagined relative to the form and structure of

government, seems to be this: that as government is a transaction in the
name and for the benefit of the whole, every member of the community
ought to have some share in its administration."
Again, "Government is a contrivance instituted for the security of
individuals; and it seems both reasonable that each man should have a
share in providing for his own security, and probable, that partiality and
cabal should by this means