Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, HumanitarianLutz, Alma
History
Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian
Lutz, Alma
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
There had also been heartening signs in her own country, which she
hoped were the preparation for more successful militancy to come. She
had exulted in _The Revolution_ in 1868 over the attempt of women to
vote in Vineland, New Jersey. Encouraged by the enfranchisement of
women in Wyoming in 1869, Mary Olney Brown and Charlotte Olney French
had cast their votes in Washington Territory. A young widow, Marilla
Ricker, had registered and voted in New Hampshire in 1870, claiming
this right as a property holder, but her vote was refused. In 1871,
Nannette B. Gardner and Catherine Stebbins in Detroit, Catherine V.
White in Illinois, Ellen R. Van Valkenburg in Santa Cruz, California,
and Carrie S. Burnham in Philadelphia registered and attempted to
vote. Only Mrs. Gardner's vote was accepted. That same year, Sarah
Andrews Spencer, Sarah E. Webster, and seventy other women marched to
the polls to register and vote in the District of Columbia. Their
ballots refused, they brought suit against the Board of Election
Inspectors, carrying the case unsuccessfully to the Supreme Court of
the United States.[289] Another test case based on the Fourteenth
Amendment had also been carried to the Supreme Court by Myra Bradwell,
one of the first women lawyers, who had been denied admission to the
Illinois bar because she was a woman.
With the spotlight turned on the Fourteenth Amendment by these women,
lawyers here and there throughout the country were discussing the
legal points involved, many admitting that women had a good case. Even
the press was friendly.
Susan had looked forward to claiming her rights under the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments and was ready to act. She had spent the
thirty days required of voters in Rochester with her family and as she
glanced through the morning paper of November 1, 1872, she read these
challenging words, "Now Register!... If you were not permitted to vote
you would fight for the right, undergo all privations for it, face
death for it...."[290]
This was all the reminder she needed. She would fight for this right.
She put on her bonnet and coat, telling her three sisters what she
intended to do, asked them to join her, and with them walked briskly
to the barber shop where the voters of her ward were registering.
Boldly entering this stronghold of men, she asked to be registered.
The inspector in charge, Beverly W. Jones, tried to convince her that
this was impossible under the laws of New York. She told him she
claimed her right to vote not under the New York constitution but
under the Fourteenth Amendment, and she read him its pertinent lines.
Other election inspectors now joined in the argument, but she
persisted until two of them, Beverly W. Jones and Edwin F. Marsh, both
Republicans, finally consented to register the four women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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