The subject of temperance also claimed Miss Anthony’s attention from the time of her childhood. In 1852, she organized the New York State Women’s Temperance Association, which was the first open temperance organization of women, and the foundation for the modern society known as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was president, and Miss Anthony for several years secretary, of this first organization. It was in this work that Miss Anthony discovered the impotency of women to advance the cause of temperance without the ballot, and she at once became an ardent woman suffragist. She was also a pronounced and active abolitionist; and, during the war, with her friend and co-worker, Mrs. Stanton, and others, she presented a petition to Congress for the abolition of slavery, bearing nearly 400,000 signatures from all parts of the country. These petitions were so powerful in arousing the people, and also Congress, that Charles Sumner urged Miss Anthony to continue in the work. “Send on the petitions,” he wrote, “they furnish the only background for my demands.”
The most dramatic event of Miss Anthony’s life was her arrest and trial for voting at the presidential election of 1872. When asked by the judge, “You voted as a woman, did you not?” she replied, “No, sir, I voted as a citizen of the United States.” Before the date set for the trial Miss Anthony thoroughly canvassed her county and instructed the people in citizen’s rights, intending in this way to have the jurors, whoever they might be, well instructed in advance. To her chagrin change of venue was ordered to another county, setting the date three weeks ahead. Miss Anthony was equal to the emergency; in twenty-four hours dates were set and appointments made for a series of meetings in that county, and the country was thoroughly aroused in Miss Anthony’s behalf. The jury would no doubt have acquitted her, but the judge took the case out of their hands saying it was a question of law and not of fact, and pronounced Miss Anthony guilty and fined her $100.00 and costs. “I shall never pay a penny of this unjust claim,” she said. “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” She intended to take the case to the Supreme Court, and further to help her cause did not desire to give bond, preferring to be imprisoned, but her counsel gave bond and thus frustrated her purpose of carrying it to the Supreme Court. The inspectors who received the ballot from her and her friends were fined and imprisoned, but were pardoned by President Grant. Miss Anthony steadfastly adhered to her vow and never paid the fine.
Miss Anthony has always been in great demand on the platform and has lectured in almost every city and hamlet in the North. She has made constitutional arguments before congressional committees and spoken impromptu in all sorts of places. Wherever a good word in introducing a speaker, or a short speech to awaken a convention, or a closing appeal to set people to work was needed she always knew how to say the right thing, and never wearied her audience. There was no hurry, no superfluity in her discourse, and it was equally devoid of sentiment or poetry. She was remarkably self-forgetful and devoted to the noblest principles. A fine sense of humor, however, pervaded her logical arguments. She had the happy faculty of disarming and winning her opponents. She possessed a most wonderful memory, carrying in her mind the legislative history of each state, the formation and progress of political parties, and the public history of prominent men in our national life, and in fact whatever has been done the world over to ameliorate the condition of women. She is said to be a most congenial and instructive companion, and her unfailing sympathy makes her as good a listener as talker.
It must be consolingly comforting and pleasant for this ardent worker, who has stemmed a violent tide of opposition throughout a long life, to have the tide of popular esteem turn so favorably toward her last years. Once it was the fashion of the press to ridicule and jeer, but at last the best reporters were sent to interview her and to put her sentiments before the world with the most respectful and laudatory personal comment. Society, too, threw open its doors, and into many distinguished gatherings she carried a refreshing breath of sincerity and earnestness. Her seventieth birthday was celebrated by the National Woman Suffrage Association with an outburst of gratitude which is perhaps unparalleled in the history of any living woman. In 1892 she was elected president of this association, at which time, though seventy-two years of age, she was still of undiminished vigor and activity. Standing at the head of this organization, of which she was forty years before among the founders, Susan B. Anthony is one of the most heroic figures in American history.
WOMAN’S RIGHT TO SUFFRAGE.
After its delivery, this address was printed and distributed in Monroe and Ontario counties prior to her trial, in June, 1873, the charge against her being that she had violated the law by voting in the presidential election in November, 1872. This address is necessarily argumentative; but it contains occasional passages which exhibit the power of her oratory.
Copied from an account of the trial published in Rochester, New York, 1874.
RIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I stand before you to-night, under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last Presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s right, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny.