Posted
on June 18, 2014
For
more than half of the existence of the United States, women weren't
allowed to vote. (Women still can't vote – or even DRIVE!!! – in
Saudi Arabia, although the king has promised that they will be
allowed to vote in the 2015 local elections.)On this date in 1873, the trial of Susan B. Anthony for casting a vote in the 1872 presidential election was ended. And not in a good way.
During
the trial, Anthony had argued that women were guaranteed the right to
vote by the all-new, shiny Fourteenth Amendment, which in its first
section stated that “all persons born or naturalized in the Unites
States...are citizens of the United States.” That section of the
amendment goes onto state that “no state shall make or enforce any
law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of
the United States.”
Of
course, those privileges include the right to vote. Obviously, this
was a slam-dunk – Anthony had been born in the U.S., was a citizen,
and could vote!
Right?
When
the testimony and legal arguments were over in Anthony's trial, the
judge took a piece of paper out of his pocket and read from it: “The
Fourteenth Amendment gives no right to a woman to vote, and the
voting by Miss Anthony was in violation of the law.” He then made a
bunch more comments and specifically ordered the jury to find Anthony
guilty.
This
outraged Anthony. And her lawyer. And even some of the jurors.
But
the jury did give a “Guilty” verdict.
The
judge fined Anthony $100. That's about $2000 in today's money.
Anthony
probably would have contested the verdict – maybe even taken it all
the way to the Supreme Court – but the judge didn't have her
imprisoned until she paid the fine. Apparently that took away any
grounds for an appeal.
Anthony
never did pay the fine.
On
the day of her sentencing, when asked if she had anything to say,
Susan B. Anthony told the judge:
“Yes,
your honor, I have many things to say; for in your ordered verdict of
guilty, you have trampled underfoot every vital principle of our
government.
My
natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial
rights, are all alike ignored.
Robbed
of the fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the
status of a citizen to that of a subject; and not only myself
individually, but all of my sex, are, by your honor’s verdict,
doomed to political subjection under this, so-called, form of
government.”
 |
| Anthony was very eloquent! She is also one of the few real women ever featured on U.S. money. (Lady Liberty has appeared on lots of coins but is not a real person!) |
To
be fair to the judge, the second section of the Fourteenth Amendment
talks about voting, and it specifically uses the word male
several times. It was the very first time the word male
appeared in the U.S. Constitution. Anthony and others actually fought against
the Amendment, wanting the language in Section 2 to be changed to
language of universal suffrage – that is, voting rights for men and
women, whatever their race – but many women's rights advocates
fought for the amendment, certain that it was necessary to provide
racial equality.
They were certain,
also, that once black former-slaves were guaranteed equal rights, it wouldn't be long before women, too, were guaranteed
equal rights.
However,
it took almost another half century before women were guaranteed the
right to vote in the U.S. And women still do not have an equal rights
guarantee explicitly stated in the Constitution, since the Equal
Rights Amendment proposed in 1923, finally passed in Congress in
1972, and ratified in 35 of the needed 38 states by 1977, foundered
at that point and was never made a part of the Constitution.
Amazing,
isn't it?
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