Anthony on Citizenship and Equality
Susan B. Anthony (Getty Images)
This text features defendant Susan B. Anthony’s transcribed statement during her sentencing in 1873 in which she argued she was being unfairly prosecuted for casting a vote in the election of 1872. She had been silenced since the day of her arrest months prior, so she used her trial as a platform to express her frustrations, even though Judge Ward Hunt made frequent efforts to stop her. She argued that her “natural, civil, political and judicial rights” were violated when she was denied voting privileges and punished for exercising what she believed she was within her rights to do. Not only did she argue she was being unfairly punished, but the way in which her punishment was determined was unfair because those making the decision were part of a system that was “made by men, interpreted by men, administered by men, in favor of men, and against women,” and that this guaranteed her failure.
She then compared her actions to those of fugitive slaves, who historically took illegal measures in an attempt to gain their freedom. She argued that women, like slaves, “must take it over, or under, or through the unjust forms of law,” as this was the only way to be heard by the government and by society. This comparison is important because it emphasized that women were not considered citizens even though they fit all of the criteria.
Susan B. Anthony Court Document (Library of Congress)
It is important to analyze every group’s struggle for freedom in the U.S. because it highlights America’s history of exclusion, which puts into focus certain contradictions in the country’s beliefs and actions. Her statement, “I ask not leniency at your hands-but rather the full rigors of the law,” was powerful because it emphasized how she was never asking for special treatment, but rather to be prosecuted according to a strict interpretation of the law. By doing this, she essentially used the court’s logic against it to call out the country’s hypocrisy. This resembles a common argument today about America preaching liberalism and democracy but not granting the rights guaranteed under liberal democracy to its own citizens. It makes me wonder how the country was able to establish itself as a leading democratic nation if it was unable to live up to its principles. Was the foundation merely a farce or an ideal that the country must continue to work to achieve? Clearly, Anthony, like many other reformers, believed in the latter because she was demanding that Americans live up to its ideals. This is a powerful strategy because nobody wants to see themselves as being unfair or as taking away rights that all humans are entitled to.
Excerpt from Susan B. Anthony’s Trial Statement, read by Charlotte Goodman with music by Nick Rickert:
By: Charlotte Goodman, June 2021