Suffragists -- United States; Women -- Suffrage -- United States
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 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,
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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