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
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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
It is stated in one of the public papers, by a person present at the
trial, that immediately after the dismissal of the jury, one of the
jurors said to him that that was not his verdict, nor that of the rest,
and that if he could have spoken he should have answered "Not guilty,"
and that other jurors would have sustained him in it. The writer has no
authority for this statement, beyond the letter mentioned. The juror, of
course, had a right, when the verdict was read by the clerk, to declare
that it was not his verdict, but it is not strange, perhaps, that an
ordinary juror, with no time to consider, or to consult with his
fellows, and probably ignorant of his rights, and in awe of the Court,
should have failed to assert himself at such a moment.
Probably the assumption by the judge that Miss Anthony in fact voted,
did her no real injustice, as it was a notorious fact that she did vote,
and claimed the right to do so. But all this made it no less an
usurpation for the judge to take the case from the jury, and order a
verdict of guilty to be entered up without consulting them.
There was, however, a real injustice done her by the course of the
judge, inasmuch as the mere fact of her voting, and voting unlawfully,
was not enough for her conviction. It is a perfectly settled rule of law
that there must exist an intention to do an illegal act, to make an act
a crime. It is, of course, not necessary that a person perpetrating a
crime should have an actual knowledge of a certain law which forbids the
act, but he must have a criminal intent. Thus, if one is charged with
theft, and admits the taking of the property, which is clearly proved to
have belonged to another, it is yet a good defence that he really
believed that he had a right to take it, or that he took it by mistake.
Just so in a case where, as sometimes occurs, the laws regulating the
right to vote in a State are of doubtful meaning, and a voter is
uncertain whether he has a right to vote in one town or another, and,
upon taking advice from good counsel, honestly makes up his mind that he
has a right to vote in the town of A. In this belief he applies to the
registrars of that town, who upon the statement of the facts, are of the
opinion that he has a right to vote there, and place his name upon the
list, and on election day he votes there without objection. Now, if he
should be prosecuted for illegal voting, it would not be enough that he
acknowledged the fact of voting, and that the judge was of the opinion
that his view of the law was wrong. There would remain another and most
vital question in the case, and that is, did he intend to vote
unlawfully? Now, precisely the wrong that would be done to the voter in
the case we are supposing, by the judge ordering a verdict of guilty to
be entered up, was done by that course in Miss Anthony's case. She
thoroughly believed that she had a right to vote. In addition to this
she had consulted one of the ablest lawyers in Western New York, who
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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