An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony, on the Charge of Illegal Voting, at the Presidential Election in Nov., 1872, and on the Trial of Beverly W. Jones, Edwin T. Marsh, and William B. Hall, the Inspectors of Election by Whom Her Vote was Received.Anonymous
History
An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony, on the Charge of Illegal Voting, at the Presidential Election in Nov., 1872, and on the Trial of Beverly W. Jones, Edwin T. Marsh, and William B. Hall, the Inspectors of Election by Whom Her Vote was Received.
Anonymous
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906 -- Trials, litigation, etc.; Election law -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
"No member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of the
rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the
law of the land, or the judgment of his peers."
And so carefully guarded is the citizen's right to vote, that the
Constitution makes special mention of all who may be excluded. It says:
"Laws may be passed excluding from the right of suffrage all
persons who have been or may be convicted of bribery, larceny or
any infamous crime."
In naming the various employments that shall not affect the residence of
voters--the 3d section of article 2d says "that being kept at any alms
house, or other asylum, at public expense, nor being confined at any
public prison, shall deprive a person of his residence," and hence his
vote. Thus is the right of voting most sacredly hedged about. The only
seeming permission in the New York State Constitution for the
disfranchisement of women is in section 1st of article 2d, which says:
"Every male citizen of the age of twenty-one years, &c., shall be
entitled to vote."
But I submit that in view of the explicit assertions of the equal right
of the whole people, both in the preamble and previous article of the
constitution, this omission of the adjective "female" in the second,
should not be construed into a denial; but, instead, counted as of no
effect. Mark the direct prohibition: "No member of this State shall be
disfranchised, unless by the 'law of the land,' or the judgment of his
peers." "The law of the land," is the United States Constitution: and
there is no provision in that document that can be fairly construed into
a permission to the States to deprive any class of their citizens of
their right to vote. Hence New York can get no power from that source to
disfranchise one entire half of her members. Nor has "the judgment of
their peers" been pronounced against women exercising their right to
vote; no disfranchised person is allowed to be judge or juror--and none
but disfranchised persons can be women's peers; nor has the legislature
passed laws excluding them on account of idiocy or lunacy; nor yet the
courts convicted them of bribery, larceny, or any infamous crime.
Clearly, then, there is no constitutional ground for the exclusion of
women from the ballot-box in the State of New York. No barriers whatever
stand to-day between women and the exercise of their right to vote save
those of precedent and prejudice.
The clauses of the United States Constitution, cited by our opponents as
giving power to the States to disfranchise any classes of citizens they
shall please, are contained in sections 2d and 4th of article 1st. The
second says:
"The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen
every second year by the people of the several States; and the
electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for
electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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