I have never believed with Miss Anthony, that the XIV. Amendment was going to help us. I have never accepted certain other of her theories; but I believe in and accept her as a woman of intense convictions, of high courage and constancy; and I don't like to hear her ridiculed and abused. If anything can make me think meanly of my young brothers of the press, it is the way they pelt and pester Susan B. Anthony. For shame, boys! Never a one of you will make the man she is. Even some of our Washington editors turn aside from the fair game. Providence, in its inscrutable wisdom, has provided for them in the Board of Public Works, to vent their virtuous indignation and manly scorn of the woman they are determined shall stand in perpetual pillory in the market-place of this great, free Republic.—New York Times.
The Washington, D. C., Star says of Judge Hunt's opinion: "If his views are to prevail, of what effect are the suffrage amendments to the Federal Constitution."
[The County Post, Washington Co., N. Y., Friday, June 27, 1873].
NOT A VOTER.
The United States Courts have pronounced on Miss Anthony's case, which she so adroitly made by voting last fall, in company with fourteen others of her sex. The decision was adverse to the claim made by this devoted friend of female suffrage, that as the Constitution now stood, women had a right to vote. Accordingly the indomitable old lady was found guilty of violating the law regulating the purity of the ballot-box, and fined one hundred dollars and costs. A good many journals seem to regard this as a good joke on Susan B, as they call her, and make it the excuse for more poor jokes of their own. It may be stupid to confess it, but we can not see where the laugh comes in. If it is a mere question of who has got the best of it, Miss Anthony is still ahead; she has voted, and the American Constitution has survived the shock. Fining her one hundred dollars does not rub out that fact that fourteen women voted, and went home, and the world jogged on as before. The decision of the judge does not prove that it is wrong for women to vote, it does not even prove that Miss Anthony did wrong in voting. It only shows that one judge on the bench differs in opinion from other equally well qualified judges off the bench. It is not our province to find fault with this decision of the United States Court at Rochester. Miss Anthony may be wrong in attempting to vote; of that we are not certain. But of the greater question back of it, of Miss Anthony's inherent right to vote we have no question, and that after all is the more important matter. This Rochester breakwater may damn back the stream for a while, but it is bound to come, sweeping away all barriers. The opposition to extending the suffrage to the other sex is founded alone on prejudice arising from social custom. Reason and logic are both against it. Women will not be voters possibly for some years to come; it is not desirable that the franchise should come too quick; but they are certain to have the full privilege of citizenship in the end.
[The Age, Thursday, July 31, 1873.]
KU-KLUX PRISONERS.
The Ku-Klux prisoners are, it seems, now to be released. They are persons some of whom had committed assaults and other offenses cognizable by the laws of the States where they lived, and the Ku-Klux legislation by Congress was a political device as unnecessary as it was unconstitutional. Perhaps the most ridiculous, as well as the most unjust prosecution under the Ku-Klux law was that instituted against Miss Anthony for voting in Rochester. Under her view of her rights, she presented herself at the polls, and submitted her claims to the proper officers, who decided that she had a right to vote. She practiced no fraud or concealment of any kind. She did what every good citizen here would do, if any doubt arose from assessment, registration, or residence, as to his right to vote. He would state the case to the election officers, and abide their decision. Yet this, we are told, is a criminal offense under the Ku-Klux law, for which a citizen who has done exactly what he ought to have done, may be fined and imprisoned as a criminal. Nay, if, as often happens, a point of doubt is submitted to our Court of Common Pleas and decided in favor of the applicant, he is still liable to criminal prosecution under the Federal Ku-Klux law, if a United States Commissioner or Judge differs from the State Judge in the construction of the State law. Since the victims of the Ku-Klux act are now receiving pardons, we hope the fine of $100 unlawfully imposed on Miss Anthony may be remitted. We do not think there was a case of more gross injustice ever practiced under forms of law, than the conviction of that lady for a criminal offense in voting, with the assent of the legal election officers to whom her right was submitted. If all the victims of this unconstitutional law were as innocent as she was, they can not be too soon released. Even those who were guilty of offenses cognizable by the State law, were unjustly tried and condemned under an unconstitutional statute passed for political effect.
[From the Philadelphia Age].