Susan B. Anthony Trial Statement (1873)

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“I am degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject; and not only myself individually, but all of my sex”[1]. These were the defiant words of Susan B. Anthony prior to her sentencing in her 1873 trial. She illegally voted seven months prior in the 1872 presidential election in Rochester, New York and was arrested thereafter. When she was given the chance to speak before her sentencing, Anthony condemned her trial as a great injustice. Anthony believed that recent constitutional amendments allowed her and every other American citizen, regardless of sex, the right to vote. During her statement, Anthony hearkened back to the American Revolution to justify her rights, and in doing so, revealed her belief that the suffragettes’ mission was an extension of the ideals of the American Revolution.

Photograph of Susan B Anthony (Britannica)

Context

Susan B. Anthony lived during a time when women were vulnerable to the oppression of men, and she felt that just as the colonists were subjugated by the British crown in 1776, so were American women now being subjugated by American men. When Anthony voted in the 1872 presidential election seven months prior to her trial, many women were still disenfranchised under common law doctrine called coverture. Speaking on coverture, Professor Sara Chatfield of Denver University says, “From the moment a woman said her marriage vows, her legal identity was completely subsumed into her husband’s; she ceased to have an independent identity under the common law.”[2] In November of 1872, Anthony went to the polls, likely keeping in mind the scores of married women living under their husbands and armed with the new Fourteenth Amendment. Anthony was fomenting her own revolution to usurp the power structure of husband over wife – man over woman. While she faced little resistance while casting her vote, she was later arrested for casting a ballot as a woman, and she appeared in court in June of 1873. After a 2-day trial, Judge Ward Hunt instructed the jury to find Anthony guilty, but he did allow her a chance to speak before her sentencing. Anthony was prepared. 

Susan B. Anthony’s Indictment For Illegal Voting (National Archives)

Text

In her statement, Susan B. Anthony used the language of the revolution along with a constitutional argument to protest the injustices of her trial. In the heated, 1048-word exchange with Judge Hunt, she condemned her trial as a “high handed outrage upon my citizen’s rights.”[3] While Anthony’s words comprised the majority of the exchange, Judge Hunt did periodically interrupt her with requests that she stop speaking or sit down. Despite these sporadic interruptions, Anthony continued in her protestation about the Judge’s denial of what she viewed as her constitutional rights. The 14th amendment’s equal protection clause was Central to Anthony’s argument. It reads, “No state shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”[4] Because every citizen should have the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment, Anthony argued that women who are citizens should have the same rights and protections as men who are citizens, including the right to vote. However, given that this argument did not hold up in court, Anthony declared that she was being denied her citizenship and by extension, any constitutional protection. “Your denial of my citizen’s right to vote, is the denial of my right of consent as one of the governed, the denial of my right of representation as one of the taxed, the denial of my right to a trial by a jury of my peers as an offender against law.”[5] Anthony furthered her argument by noting that she really did not have a jury of her peers because men, clearly having more rights than women, could inherently not be women’s peers, yet all Anthony’s jurors were men. Lastly, when ordered to pay a $100 fine for her crime, Anthony refused to pay, saying, “…not a penny shall go to this unjust claim”[6].

Subtext

Throughout her oration, Anthony used the language of the revolution, and beyond that, she seemed to believe that the women’s suffrage movement was simply the natural next step in that revolution. Susan B. Anthony said, “I am degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject” [7]. This statement referred to colonial America where the colonists were subjects King George III. Anthony viewed woman’s fight for freedom from the rule of man as the successor to America’s fight for freedom from the rule of Great Britain. Continuing this connection, Anthony referenced several ideals of the revolution, including the concepts of John Locke’s social contract. “Your denial of my citizen’s right to vote, is the denial of my right of consent as one of the governed…therefore, the denial of my sacred rights to life, liberty, property and-“[8]. Next, when lamenting the injustice of her trial, Anthony said, “Even, under such circumstances, a commoner of England, tried before a jury of Lords, would have far less cause to complain than should I, a woman, tried before a jury of men” [9]. Anthony deftly claimed that America’s current class system is no better than the one Americans escaped nearly a century earlier with the King being at the top of the British class structure. This is especially indicative of how strongly connected to the American Revolution Anthony felt, because Anthony placed the tyranny of men above the tyranny of a king.

Finally, in her most explicit statement of solidarity with the colonists of 1776, Anthony closed with “And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old revolutionary maxim, that ‘Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God'”[10]. Here, Anthony encouraged all suffragettes to align their cause under the banner of the American Revolution. While some might argue that Anthony’s references to the revolution were not significant because American reformers have used the ideals of the revolution as rallying cries for their causes throughout history, Anthony had a belief that suffragettes inherited the work of the American Revolution. In The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV, Anthony, along with Ida Harper, stated her belief that women’s suffrage was simply the next step of the revolution, “The consistent tendency since the right to individual representation was established by the Revolutionary War has been to extend this right, until now every man in the United States is enfranchised”[11].

A June 5, 1873 cover illustration for the Daily Graphic newspaper titled “The Woman Who Dared” (U.S. Capitol)

Conclusion

Although Susan B. Anthony’s constitutional challenge in the courts was unable to obtain women the right to vote without consequence, she did provide women everywhere with a powerful argument as to why, under the latest version of the constitution and bearing the nation’s founding principles in mind, women should be allowed the right to vote. In her appeals to the spirit of the American Revolution, Anthony echoed the sentiments of her contemporaries in the abolitionist movement like Fredrick Douglass. In his “Fifth of July Speech,” Douglass said, “How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing, a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom”[12]? Like Douglass and those at the forefront of the American Revolution, Anthony demanded the natural right to freedom, this time for women. For Anthony, women’s suffrage was the inevitable continuation of the revolution. As she said in her last public address: “Failure is impossible”[13].

[1] Susan B. Anthony 1873. “Susan B. Anthony Trial Statement .” Knowledge For Freedom Seminar . https://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/teagle/texts/susan-b-anthony-trial-statement-1873/.

[2] Sara Chatfield. 2023. “Life Under Coverture and How It Changed.” In In Her Own Name: The Politics of Women’s Rights Before Suffrage. Columbia University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/chat19966.4.

[3] Anthony, “Susan B. Anthony Trial Statement.”

[4] “U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment | Resources | Constitution Annotated | Congress.Gov | Library of Congress.” 1868. Congress.Gov. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/.

[5] Anthony, “Susan B. Anthony Trial Statement.”

[6] Anthony, “Susan B. Anthony Trial Statement.”

[7] Anthony, “Susan B. Anthony Trial Statement.”

[8] Anthony, “Susan B. Anthony Trial Statement.”

[9] Anthony, “Susan B. Anthony Trial Statement.”

[10] Anthony, “Susan B. Anthony Trial Statement.”

[11] Ida Harper and Susan B Anthony. 1902. The History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. IV. Indianapolis: Hollenbeck Press. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29870/29870-h/29870-h.htm.

[12] Fredrick Douglass. 1852. “Fifth of July Speech.” Knowledge For Freedom Seminar . https://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/teagle/texts/frederick-douglass-fifth-of-july-speech-1852/.

[13] “‘Failure Is Impossible!’ The Battle for the Ballot (U.S. National Park Service).” n.d. Www.Nps.Gov. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/-failure-is-impossible-the-battle-for-the-ballot.htm.