Jailed for Freedom | Page 3

the question, but simply stating the reasons why sentence
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cannot in justice be pronounced 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 taxed, the denial of my right to a trial by jury of my peers as an offender against law; therefore, the denial of my sacred right to life, liberty, property, and
JUDGE HUNT-The Court cannot 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 highhanded 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 class has been allowed a word of defense before judge or jury
JUDGE HUNT-The prisoner must sit down, the Court cannot allow it.
Miss ANTHONY-Of all my persecutors from the 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 . . . . Precisely as no disfranchised person is entitled to sit upon the jury and no woman is entitled 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, all must be of superior class.
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 the "citizen's right to vote," simply because that
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citizen was a woman and not a man . . . . As then the slaves who got their freedom had to take it over or under or through the unjust forms of the law, precisely so now must women take it to get their right to a voice in this government; and I have taken mine, and mean to take it at every 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 interpretation of the constitution and its recent amendments, which should declare all United States citizens under its protecting aegis . . . . 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 rigor of the law.
JUDGE HUNT-The Court must insist (here the prisoner sat down). The prisoner will stand up. (Here Miss Anthony rose again.) The sentence of the Court is that you pay a fine of $100.00 and the costs of the prosecution.
Miss ANTHONY-May it please your Honor, I will never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty . . . . And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old Revolutionary maxim, "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."
JUDGE HUNT-Madam, the Court will not order you stand committed until the fine is paid.
Miss Anthony did not pay her fine and was never imprisoned. I believe the fine stands against her to this day.
On the heels of this sensation came another of those dramatic protests which until the very end she always combined with political agitation. The nation was celebrating its first centenary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence at Independence Square, Philadelphia. After women had been refused by all in authority a humble half moment in which to present to the Centennial the Women's Declaration of Rights,
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Miss Anthony insisted on being heard. Immediately after the Declaration of Independence had been read by a patriot, she led a committee of women, who with platform tickets had slipped through the military, straight down the center aisle of the platform to address the chairman, who pale with fright and powerless to stop the demonstration had to accept her document. Instantly the platform, graced as it was by national dignitaries and crowned heads, was astir. The women retired, distributing to the gasping spectators copies of their Declaration. Miss Anthony had reminded the nation of the hollowness of its celebration of an independence that excluded women.
Susan B. Anthony's aim was the national enfranchisement of women. As soon as she became convinced that the constitution would have to be specifically amended to include woman suffrage, she set herself to this gigantic task. For a quarter of a century she appealed to