"The Act to Enforce the right of citizens to vote," declares that CITIZENS shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all elections by the people, in any state, territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial division, &c.
This Act was passed after the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, and is designed to be in accordance with the Constitution. It does not say black citizens shall be entitled and allowed to vote; it does not say male citizens shall be entitled and allowed to vote—it merely says CITIZENS. It covers the right of women citizens to vote, and yet United States officials claim to find in this very act, their authority for prosecuting Miss Anthony and those fourteen other women citizens of Rochester for the alleged crime of voting. When Miss Anthony voted, what did she do? She merely exercised her citizen's right of suffrage—a right to which she, and all women citizens are entitled by virtue of their citizenship in the nation—a right to which they are entitled because individual political rights are the basis of the government. The United States has no other foundation. If that right is trampled upon, we have no nation. We may hang together in a sort of anarchical way for a time, but our dissolution draws near. Can the United States destroy rights on account of sex? In the original Constitution, before even the first ten amendments were added, States were forbidden to pass bills of attainder. By the fourteenth amendment, the right of voting was forbidden to be abridged, unless for crime. Is it a crime to be a woman? "In the beginning God created man, male and female, created he them." A bill of attainder inflicts punishment, creates liabilities or disabilities, on account of parentage, birth, or descent. Do United States officials presume to create a disability, or inflict a punishment, on account of birth as a woman, and this in direct defiance of the Constitution? When the Constitution of the United States presents no barrier, no lesser power has such authority. "The Constitution of the United States, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land."
Says article sixth: "Any law of Congress not made in pursuance of, or in unison with the Constitution, is an illegal and void law." Coke declared an Act of Parliament against Magna Charta was null and void.
But United States officials declare it a crime for a United States citizen to vote. If it is a crime for a native-born citizen, it ought to be a still greater crime for a foreign-born citizen. But the fact that citizenship carries with it the right of voting, is shown in the act of naturalization. A foreigner, after a certain length of residence in this country, proceeds to take out papers of citizenship. To become a citizen, is all that he needs to make of him a voter. At one and the same time he picks up a ballot, and his naturalization papers. Nothing more than his becoming a citizen is needed for him to vote—nothing less will answer. Susan B. Anthony is a native-born citizen. She had to take out no papers to make her a citizen—she was born in the United States—she is educated, intelligent, and free born. Native-born citizenship is generally conceded to be of more value than that which is bought. Do you not remember that when Paul was brought up, preparatory to being scourged, he demanded by what right they scourged him, a Roman citizen. The chief captain said, "I bought this freedom with a great price." Paul replied, "I am free born"; then great fear fell upon the chief captain, and he ordered the bonds removed from Paul. Native-born Roman citizenship was worth as much as that two thousand years ago. To-day, the foreign-born American citizen, who has bought his freedom with a great price, who has left his home and country, and crossed the sea to a strange land, in order that he may find freedom, is held to be superior to "free born" American women citizens.
But Miss Anthony is not battling for herself alone, nor for the woman alone; she stands to-day, the embodiment of Republican principles. The question of to-day, is not has woman a right to vote, but has any American citizen, white or black, native-born, or naturalized, a right to vote. The prosecution of Miss Anthony by the United States, for the alleged crime of having cast a vote at the last election, is a positive declaration of the government of the United States that it is a crime to vote. Let that decision be affirmed, and we have no republic; the ballot, the governing power in the hands of every person, is the only true republic. Each person to help make the laws which govern him or her, is the only true democracy. Individual responsibility, personal representation, exact political equality, are the only stable foundations of a republic, and when the United States makes voting a crime on the part of any free-born, law-abiding citizen, it strikes a blow at its own stability; it is undermining the very foundations of the republic—it is attempting to overthrow its own Constitution.
Miss Anthony is to-day the representative of liberty; she is to-day battling for the rights of every man, woman and child in the country; she is not only upholding the right of every native-born citizen, but of every naturalized citizen; to-day is at stake in her person, the new-born hopes of foreign lands, the quickened instincts of liberty, so well nigh universal. All these are on trial with her; the destinies of America, the civilization of the world, are in the balance with her as she stands on her defence. If the women of this country are restricted in their right of self-government, what better is it for them to have been born in the United States, than to have been born in Russia, or France, or England, or many another monarchical country? No better; nor as well, as in all these countries, women vote upon certain questions. In Russia, about one-half of the property of the country is in the hands of women, and they vote upon its disposition and control. In France and Sweden, women vote at municipal elections, and in England, every woman householder or rate-payer, votes for city officers, for poor wardens and school commissioners, thus expressing her views as to the education of her children, which is a power not possessed by a single woman of this State of New York, whose boast has been that it leads the legislation of the world in regard to women. Property-holding women in England, vote equally with property-holding men, for every office except Parliamentary, and even that is near at hand, a petition for it of 180,000 names going up last year. England, though a monarchy, is consistent with herself. As the foundation of English representation is property, not persons, property is allowed its representation, whether it is held by man or by woman.
"Are ye not of more value than many sparrows?" said one of old. Is it less pertinent for us to ask if personal representation is not more sacred than property representation? "Where governments lead, there are no revolutions," said the eloquent Castelar. But revolution is imminent in a government like ours, instituted by the people, for the people, in its charters recognizing the most sacred rights of the people, but which, in a sovereign capacity, through its officials, tramples upon the most sacredly secured and guaranteed rights of the people.
The question brought up by this trial is not a woman's rights question, but a citizen's rights question. It is not denied that women are citizens,—it is not denied that Susan B. Anthony was born in the United States, and is therefore a citizen of the United States, and of the State wherein she resides, which is this State of New York. It cannot be denied that she is a person,—one of the people,—there is not a word in the Constitution of the United States which militates against the recognition of woman as a person, as one of the people, as a citizen. The whole question, then, to-day, turns on the power of the United States over the political rights of citizens—the whole question then, to-day, turns on the supreme authority of the National Constitution.
The Constitution recognizes native-born women as citizens, both of the United States, and of the States in which they reside, and the Enforcement Act of 1870, in unison with our national fundamental principles, is entitled "An Act to enforce the right of citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of the Union." Out of those three words, "for other purposes," or any provisions of this act included in them, cannot be found authority for restraining any citizen not "guilty of participating in the rebellion, or other crime," from voting, and we brand this prosecution of Miss Anthony by United States officials, under claim of provisions in this act, as an illegal prosecution—an infamous prosecution, in direct defiance of national law—dangerous in its principles, tending to subvert a republican form of government, and a direct step, whether so designed or not, to the establishment of a monarchy in this country. Where the right of one individual is attacked, the rights of all are menaced. A blow against one citizen, is a blow against every citizen.
The government has shown itself very weak in prosecuting Miss Anthony. No astute lawyer could be found on a side so pregnant of flaws as this one, were not the plaintiff in the case, the sovereign United States. The very fact of the prosecution is at one and the same time weakness on the part of the government, and an act of unauthorized authority. It is weakness, because by it, the United States comes onto the ground of the defendant, and, at once admits voting is an United States right, because United States rights are citizens' rights. By this prosecution, the United States clearly admits that protection of the ballot is an United States duty, instead of a State duty. It is an United States duty instead of a State duty, because voting is an United States right instead of a State right. This prosecution is an open admission by the United States, that voting is a Constitutional right.