Susan Brownell Anthony in the United States

Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

Introduction

According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, Susan B. Anthony was born in Adams, Massachusetts to a Quaker father and a Baptist mother. She never married and was a lifelong advocate of self-support for women. In 1850, she met elizabeth cady stanton, from whom she learned about women’s rights.a>

Life and Work

American reformer, was born at Adams, Massachusetts, on the 15th of February 1820, the daughter of Quakers. Soon after her birth, her family moved to the state of New York, and after 1845 she lived in Rochester. She received her early education in a school maintained by her father for his own and neighbours’ children, and from the time she was seventeen until she was thirty-two she taught in various schools. In the decade preceding the outbreak of the Civil War she took a prominent part in the anti-slavery and temperance movements in New York, organizing in 1852 the first woman’s state temperance society in America, and in 1856 becoming the agent for New York state of the American Anti-slavery Society.

After 1854 she devoted herself almost exclusively to the agitation for woman’s rights, and became recognized as one of the ablest and most zealous advocates, both as a public speaker and as a writer, of the complete legal equality of the two sexes. From 1868 to 1870 she was the proprietor of a weekly paper, The Revolution, published in New York, edited by Mrs Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and having for its motto, “The true republic—men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.” She was vice-president-at-large of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association from the date of its organization in 1869 until 1892, when she became president. For casting a vote in the presidential election of 1872, as, she asserted, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution entitled her to do, she was arrested and fined $100, but she never paid the fine. In collaboration with Mrs Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mrs Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Mrs Ida Husted Harper, she published The History of Woman Suffrage (4 vols., New York, 1884-1887). She died at Rochester, New York, on the 13th of March 1906. [1]

Remarks by Susan B. Anthony in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York

“On 19 June 1873, a day after Justice Ward Hunt found Susan B. Anthony guilty of the federal crime of voting without the right to vote, the judge denied her lawyer’s motion for a new trial. Then before pronouncing sentence, Hunt asked Anthony a routine legal question. Her reply has become one of the best-known texts in the history of woman suffrage.” [2]

As a matter of outward form the defendant was asked if she had anything to say why the sentence of the court should not be pronounced upon her.

“Yes, your honor,” replied Miss Anthony, “I have many things to say. My every right, constitutional, civil, political and judicial has been tramped upon. I have not only had no jury of my peers, but I have had no jury at all.”

Court—”Sit down Miss Anthony. I cannot allow you to argue the question.”

Miss Anthony—”I shall not sit down. I will not lose my only chance to speak.”

Court—”You have been tried, Miss Anthony, by the forms of law, and my decision has been rendered by law.”

Miss Anthony—”Yes, but laws made by men, under a government of men, interpreted by men and for the benefit of men. The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law, as I have done, and as I shall continue to do,” and she struck her hand heavily on the table in emphasis of what she said. “Does your honor suppose that we obeyed the infamous fugitive slave law which forbade to give a cup of cold water to a slave fleeing from his master? I tell you we did not obey it; we fed him and clothed him, and sent him on his way to Canada. So shall we trample all unjust laws under foot. I do not ask the clemency of the court. I came into it to get justice, having failed in this, I demand the full rigors of the law.”

Court—”The sentence of the court is $100 fine and the costs of the prosecution.”

Miss Anthony—”I have no money to pay with, but am $10,000 in debt.”

Court—”You are not ordered to stand committed till it is paid.”

(Matilda Joslyn Gage to Editor, 20 June 1873, Kansas Leavenworth Times, 3 July 1873, SBA scrapbook 6, Rare Books, Library of Congress)

Letter from Susan B. Anthony to Mary McHenry Keith on Non-Partisan Campaign, 20 March 1896

In 1630 Folsom St., San Francisco March 20, 1896

My Dear Mrs Keith:

Dr. Elizabeth Sargent brings me your note and the News Letter clipping— How can I state our position as to the political parties—so as to be understood—

Women can belong to no party—in the sense that men belong— We stand outside of each and all alike—and plead with the leaders of all—alike—to put Suffrage Amendment resolutions in their platforms—thereby making their party editors—and party stump orators free to advocate the amendment without being told they are going outside their platform of principles and policies—

What we try to do is to keep our women from saying they’ll belong to—or work for—any political party—until after they are enfranchised— Now—we are beggars of each and all—to declare they’ll help carry the amendment—

If one, or all, of the parties—puts a plank in platform—they will not only tolerate men’s advocating the amendment—but will be likely to invite women to speak at their party rallies—all over the State—and our speakers are implored to speak only on the one plank—that of Suffrage amdt— For instance—if any one of the State Committees should invite me to speak at one of their party meetings—I should say yes—I shall be happy to do so—provided I may speak only on the W.S. amdt plank—but that I should say nothing on their other planks—whether gold or silver—free trade or tariff—etc— You see our policy is—and will be not to be partisan—but to help the amendment by speaking for it anywhere and everywhere we can get the opportunity to do so. Of all the other points—or plots—in the article, you can deal better blows than can I.

If such men could only believe in Nature’s Laws—that neither men nor women can change their sex—that to allow women’s opinions to be counted at the ballot-box, will no more interfere with their wifehood and motherhood—than voting now interferes with men’s husbandhood or father-hood.

The great fact of woman-hood is over and under all the incidents of life—as manhood is over and above all the incidents of his life—

Isn’t it sickening that these old flimsey objections are thrust before us today—just as they were a half century ago when our claim was first made.

Sincerely Yours

Resources

Notes and References

1. Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)
2. As published in the vol. 6 Selected Papers, Volume 6, 2013 Rutgers State University of New Jersey

See Also

• Woman Suffrage Gains
• Abolitionism
• Woman Suffrage
• Woman Suffrage Movement
• Women’s Right to Vote
• Woman Suffrage History

Further Reading

• Susan B. Anthony in the Encyclopedia of Sexual Behavior and the Law
• Mrs Ida Husted Harper’s Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (3 vols., Indianapolis, 1898-1908)