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R**O
Highly Informative but a bit dry
Susan B. Anthony was hardly the shy and retiring type. While demure and reticent on the outside, inside burned the fire of a dedicated social reformer. Much of "The Woman Who Dared to Vote: The Trial of Susan B. Anthony" is devoted to two court cases: "United States v. Susan B. Anthony" and the Supreme Court case, "Minor v. Happersett". The remainder of the book deals with Anthony's close working relationship with fellow suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton. At 210 pages the book is relatively short, but nonetheless highly informative, and, for my taste a bit dry. That said, I give the book five stars for content. The unfortunate cover is hardly flattering of Ms. Anthony, but it is historically significant in that it's from the Library of Congress.Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, Susan B. Anthony was at an early age involved with various social movements: at age 17 she was collecting anti-slavery petitions. Having moved from her native state of Massachusetts to Rochester, New York--presumably to be closer to the reform movements--she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.In 1851 she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton on a street corner in Seneca Falls. Though a small village in the mid-19th century, Seneca Falls was at the center of several reform movements, notably the abolition of slavery, women's rights, and temperance. It was probably Anthony and Stanton's temperance activities that led to their meeting. They were destined to become life-long friends and a formidable pair in the quest for woman's suffrage. Stanton was older, better educated and more articulate than Anthony. Indeed, in the years ahead, when the pair would travel the nation on speaking tours, it was Stanton's name that drew in the crowds. However, Anthony would find her voice in a trial that would electrify the nation, and make hers the face of the suffrage movement as it entered the 20th century.Thirty years after their meeting, Stanton clearly recalled her first meeting with Anthony. "There she stood, with her good, earnest face and genial smile, dressed in gray delaine, hat and all the same color, relieved with pale blue ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly."It was in Seneca Falls, in 1848, that a two-day conference of about 50 women’s rights advocates met and drafted what would become known as the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled roughly after the Declaration of Independence. Among the nineteen resolutions was a proposal to repeal all laws in “conflict, in any way with the true and substantial happiness of woman.” Another proclaimed “that woman is man’s equal—was intended to be so by the Creator.” The basic thrust of all the resolutions was that women should be treated as equal to men in every public endeavor, including the right to vote. When the Declaration of Sentiments was presented for a vote on the second day of the convention, the right-to-vote resolution (which had been nominated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton) was the most controversial. While the Declaration was approved by acclamation, the suffrage resolution won by a bare majority. Nonetheless, the die had been cast: the Seneca Falls Convention has been forever remembered as the event that launched the women’s suffrage movement.The turning point that shifted Anthony and Stanton's focus from temperance to woman suffrage, occurred sometime between 1852 and 1854. The pair had been vigorously lobbying for a bill in the New York state legislature that would outlaw the manufacture and distribution of alcoholic beverages within the state. Stanton complained loudly about their frustration in petitioning male legislators. "Let woman never again be guilty of the folly of asking wine and beer-drinkers to put down the liquor traffic."Later, at the Women's New York State Temperance Society, it was Anthony's turn to speak out. "Woman must carry these temperance principles into politics," she said "If we cannot vote we can influence voters. If man assumes to vote for us, it is time we instruct him how we want voting done."Indeed, gaining the right to vote was the next logical step. But how? It was Anthony who decided to test the law, by going to the polls on election day and voting and, after being turned away, to file suit in federal court to challenge the law that prevented women from voting. The legal basis for the challenge would be the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment, part of which reads: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."The problem for Anthony, ironically, was that when she showed up to vote, no one tried to stop her. In the 1872 election, she voted and soon after was arrested and convicted in a widely publicized trial. During the trial, the judge made the egregious blunder of directing the jury to deliver a guilty verdict. He then asked Anthony if she had anything to say. Up to this point she had been quiet. Now she couldn't be silenced. According to historian Ann D. Gordon, "she responded with the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage. Repeatedly ignoring the judge's order to stop talking and sit down, she protested what she called 'this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights,' and adding, "you have trampled upon every foot, every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored."When the judge sentenced Anthony to pay a $100 fine, she responded, "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty." If the judge had ordered her to be jailed until she paid the fine, Anthony could have appealed her case to the Supreme Court. Instead the judge announced he would order her to be taken into custody, thus closing off that legal avenue.While the whole sad episode did not go as hoped, the trial did draw the attention of newspapers across the country, making Susan B. Anthony a national figure, while moving the suffragette movement from being a mere curiosity, to a respected national movement that attracted support from thousands of citizens who otherwise knew nothing about what was going on in upstate New York.The Supreme Court decision they had hoped for came soon after, in 1875. The case was "Minor v. Happersett". However, that court case did not go as hoped for either. The chief justice, who gave the opinion, ruled that "the Constitution of the United States does not consider the right of suffrage upon anyone . . . and in this case specifically a female citizen of the state of Missouri, a right to vote even when a state law granted rights to vote to a certain class of citizens. . . ."The next logical step was to push for an amendment that specifically granted women the right to vote. In 1878, Anthony and Stanton arranged for Congress to be presented with an amendment giving women the right to vote. Introduced by Sen. Aaron Sargent of California.In the early part of the 20th century, with the progressive era in full swing, Anthony and Stanton met with various presidents in an effort to get the amendment passed in congress, but time was running out. By now both women were in their 80s, and not in the best of health (note: neither woman would live to see the amendment passed). In 1902, Stanton died. Four years later, in 1906, Anthony died. It wasn't until Woodrow Wilson was in the White House, that a president gave the amendment the push it needed to get passed in both houses of congress. It passed the Senate by slimmest of margins--two votes. In early summer, Wilson signed the bill and sent it off to the states for ratification.Thirty-six states were needed to ratify; 35 did so. In the end, it came down to one state--Tennessee. If the Tennessee legislature approved the amendment, it would become law, just in time for the fall 1920 presidential election. If the amendment failed in Tennessee, it could be delayed indefinitely, and perhaps not be enacted anytime in the foreseeable future.The fight in the Tennessee legislature was brutal, but the measure eventually did pass--by one vote. On August 26, 1920--72 years after the Seneca Falls Convention--the 19th Amendment entered the U.S. Constitution. It was the largest expansion of the electorate in American history--the enfranchisement of fully half the citizens of the nation.While the suffrage movement began with the tireless work of two women, the 19th Amendment has been forever known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Indeed, in 1979, it was her face that was chosen to grace the silver dollar.
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