array of argument—and told her he would give her an answer on Monday. She called then and he said: "My brother Samuel and I have spent an entire day in examining these papers and we believe that your claim to a right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment is valid. I will protect you in that right to the best of my ability."
Armed with this authority she cast her vote the next day, and advised the other women to do the same. As the inspectors hesitated to receive the votes, Miss Anthony assured them that should they be prosecuted she herself would bear all the expenses of the suit. They had been advised not to register the women by Silas J. Wagner, Republican supervisor. All three of the inspectors and also a bystander declared under oath that Daniel J. Warner, the Democratic supervisor, had advised them to register the names of the women; but on election day this same man attempted to challenge their votes. This, however, already had been done by one Sylvester Lewis, who testified later that he acted for the Democratic central committee. The general belief that these ladies voted the Republican ticket may have influenced this action.
About two weeks after election, Monday, November 18, Miss Anthony received a call from Deputy United States Marshal E.J. Keeney who, amid many blushes and much hesitation and stammering, announced that it was his unpleasant duty to arrest her. "Is this your usual method of serving a warrant?" she calmly inquired. The marshal, thus encouraged, produced the necessary legal document.5 As she wished to make some change in her dress, he told her she could come down alone to the commissioner's office, but she refused to take herself to court, so he waited until she was ready and then declined her suggestion that he put handcuffs on her. She had intended to have suit brought against those inspectors who refused to register the women, but it never had occurred to her that those who voted would themselves be arrested.
Under date of November 27, Judge Selden wrote her: "I suppose the commissioner will, as a matter of course, hold you for trial at the circuit court, whatever your rights may be in the matter. In my opinion, the idea that you can be charged with a crime on account of voting, or offering to vote, when you honestly believed yourself entitled to vote, is simply preposterous, whether your belief were right or wrong. However, the learned gentlemen engaged in this movement seem to suppose they can make a crime out of your honest deposit of your ballot, and perhaps they can find a respectable court or jury that will be of their opinion. If they do so I shall be greatly disappointed."
Miss Anthony and the fourteen other ladies who voted, went before U. S. Commissioner Storrs, U. S. District-Attorney Crowley and Assistant U. S. District-Attorney Pond, and were ordered to appear for examination Friday, November 29. Following is a portion of the examination of Miss Anthony by the commissioner:
Previous to voting at the 1st district poll in the Eighth ward, did you take the advice of counsel upon your voting?—Yes, sir.—Who was it you talked with?—Judge Henry E. Selden.—What did he advise you in reference to your legal right to vote?—He said it was the only way to find out what the law was upon the subject—to bring it to a test case.—Did he advise you to offer your vote?—Yes, sir.—State whether or not, prior to such advice, you had retained Mr. Selden. No, sir.—Have you anything further to say upon Judge Selden's advice?—I think it was sound.—Did he give you an opinion upon the subject?—He was like the rest of you lawyers—he had not studied the question.—What did he advise you?—He left me with this opinion: That he was a conscientious man; that he would thoroughly study the subject of woman's right to vote and decide according to the law.—Did you have any doubt yourself of your right to vote?—Not a particle.
Cross-examination—Would you not have made the same efforts to vote that you did, if you had not consulted with Judge Selden?—Yes, sir.—Were you influenced in the matter by his advice at all?—No, sir.—You went into this matter for the purpose of testing the question?—Yes, sir; I had been resolved for three years to vote at the first election when I had been at home for thirty days before.
It is an incident worthy of note that this examination took place and the commissioner's decision was rendered in the same dingy little room where, in the olden days, fugitive slaves were examined and returned to their masters. While the attorneys were endeavoring to agree upon a date for the hearing of arguments, Miss Anthony remarked that she should be engaged lecturing in central Ohio until December 10. "But you are supposed to be in custody all this time," said the district-attorney. "Oh, is that so? I had forgotten all about that," she replied. That night she wrote in her diary: "A hard day and a sad anniversary! Ten years ago our dear father was laid to rest. This evening at 7 o'clock my old friend Horace Greeley died. A giant intellect suddenly gone out!"
The second hearing took place December 23 in the common council chamber, in the presence of a large audience which included many ladies, the newspapers stating that it had rather the appearance of a social gathering than an arraignment of criminals. Of those on trial one paper said: "The majority of these law-breakers were elderly, matronly-looking women with thoughtful faces, just the sort one would like to see in charge of one's sick-room, considerate, patient, kindly."
At Judge Selden's request, Hon. John Van Voorhis, one of the ablest lawyers in Rochester, had been associated with himself for the defense. Both made strong, logical arguments, and Miss Anthony herself spoke most earnestly in behalf of the three inspectors, who also had been arrested. The commissioner held all of them guilty, fixed their bail at $500 each, and gave them until the following Monday to furnish it. All did so except Miss Anthony, who refused to give bail and applied for a writ of habeas corpus from U. S. District-Judge N. K. Hall. The Rochester Express, which stood nobly by her through this ordeal, said editorially:
Miss Anthony had a loftier end in view than the making of a sensation when she registered her name and cast her vote. The act was in harmony with a life steadily consecrated to a high purpose from which she has never wavered, though she has met a storm of invective, personal taunt and false accusation, more than enough to justify any person less courageous than she in giving up a warfare securing her only ingratitude and abuse. But Miss Anthony has no morbid sentiment in her nature. There is at least one woman in the land—and we believe there are a good many more—who does not whine others into helping her over a hard spot, or even plead for help, but bravely helps herself and puts her hand to the plough without turning back. Those who are now regarding her as practically condemned to State prison or the payment of a fine of $500, need not waste their sympathy, for she would suffer either penalty with heroic cheerfulness if thereby she might help bring about the day when the principle "no taxation without representation" meant something more than it does. In writing lately to a friend, she thus expressed herself:
"Yes, I hope you will be present at the examination, to witness the grave spectacle of fifteen native born citizens, of sound mind and not convicted of any crime, arraigned in the United States criminal courts to answer for the offense of illegal voting, when the United States Constitution, the supreme law of this land, says, 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States ... are citizens; no State shall deny or abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens;' and 'The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied.' The one question to be settled is, are personal freedom and personal representation inherent rights and privileges under democratic-republican institutions, or are they things of legislation, precisely as under old monarchical governments, to be given and taken at the option of a ruling class or of a majority vote? If the former, then is our country free indeed; if the latter, then is our country a despotism, and we women its victims!"
Under date of December 12, Benjamin F. Butler, then a member of Congress, wrote Miss Anthony regarding her case:
I do not believe anybody in Congress doubts that the Constitution authorizes the right of women to vote, precisely as it authorizes trial by jury and many other like rights guaranteed to citizens. But the difficulty is, the courts long since decided that the constitutional provisions do not act upon the citizens, except as guarantees, ex proprio vigore, and in order to give practical force to them there must be legislation. As, for example, in trial
