We Don't Need No Stinkin' Law to Let Us Vote: The Susan B. Anthony Trial

The trial of Susan B. Anthony was peculiar from the start in that she was tried under a federal statute on an issue for which there was no federal standard. This was a twist her attorney tried ably, but unsuccessfully, to exploit. (Note: Because this blog displays in reverse chronological order, you might want to go to the first post in this series and start reading there.)

As noted in An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony, it was the states that determined the qualifications to vote, not the federal government. Consequentially, all the feds could do was to say "if you violated the mandates of your state, we--not they--will prosecute you." Never mind that what was legal in one state was not legal in another and this federal statute could not possibly be enforced consistently from state to state.

What was the federal government doing poking its nose into what presumably should have been purely a state matter? Recall that the year was 1872, just a few years after the Civil War. Those who had taken up arms against the federal government were disallowed from voting. The law invoked against Susan Anthony made it a crime to vote if you knew you were not permitted to do so.

So the crux of the charge would seem to be, did she vote knowing full well that she had no right to do so?

No big deal. Everyone knew women did not have the right to vote, right? Wrong. Very, very wrong. In fact, the argument made by the suffragettes was based--solidly--on the language in the U.S. Constitution. For the most part, the Constitution talks in terms of "the citizen" and "the people," with no specification that the citizen or person at issue was male or female, or black or white, for that matter. In just a few instances the words "he" or "his" or "him" are used but that was the common language of the law and was never otherwise construed to refer directly and solely to men.

For example, the fact that citizens were required to pay taxes did not exclude women, even though no legislation specifically included them in that obligation. Likewise, criminal laws applied equally to women, though that was never stated explicitly. In fact, the only instance where this male vocabulary was deemed to mean men and men only was in the business of voting and serving on juries.

Think about that for a minute and imagine the legal arguments that this could lead to. I'll delve into those in my next post.

Read Part 3

Women's Right to Vote: The Susan B. Anthony Trial

The battle in the U.S. for the right of women to vote ended long ago, with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

How many of us today have any inkling of the issues and arguments that comprised that struggle? We just accept that of course, the Constitution did not originally give women the right to vote, just as it did not declare that all Blacks were free. It took Constitutional amendments to bring them about.

Allow me to refer you to An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony as an exceedingly dang interesting rebuttal of such notions. (Just as a pretty dang interesting aside, I had a couple college classes with a young woman whose name I came to learn was Susan B. Anthony. On questioning, she confirmed that the famous SBA was her great-grandmother.)

I will first lay out the facts of the case so all may be clear on the matter. In the fall of 1872 Susan Anthony and a number of other women registered to vote in Rochester, NY, and then did vote in the November election. Anthony and the others were charged with voting illegally, due to their being women and women not having any such right. Additionally, the three election inspectors who allowed these women to cast ballots were charged with breaking the law by allowing them to vote.

Anthony was tried first, the inspectors next. All were found guilty. Charges were dropped against the other women. It was not until 1920, 48 years later, that the 19th Amendment was ratified and the women's suffrage matter was finally closed.

This story is far too much for a single post, so I'll break it into several. For now, let me just say that its' not only pretty dang interesting, it's pretty dang inspiring. Come back soon and read more.

Read Part 2

One Man's Myth Is Another Man's Religion

"Myth" is defined, in part, by the American Heritage Dictionary as "A traditional story presenting supernatural beings . . ." But let's really get down to it. When we're speaking of Roman or Greek mythology what are we really talking about? Their religions. And what defines them now as mythology? Simply the fact that no one believes in these religions any more.

So I'm reading Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable . Thomas Bulfinch was a 19th Century American writer who felt that many literary references were beyond the general public because many readers were not conversant with the historical subjects they referenced. So he wrote a book intended to be very accessible to the general populace that would help them understand these references when they encountered them. And he seems to have been pretty successful in his intent.

The bulk of the book is devoted to discussions of the Greek and Roman mythologies, that is, religions, and it closes with a discussion of the Norse mythologies, or religions. It's what comes in between that I find pretty dang interesting.

Chapter XXXVII is titled "Eastern Mythology - Zoroaster - Hindu Mythology - Castes - Buddha - The Grand Lama - Prester John." You get the picture. As a good Christian, Bulfinch didn't really care that these religions were still alive--he didn't believe in them so that made them myths.

Now, that's not to dump on Christians. I would have to assume that at some point some Buddhist or Muslim or someone of some other religion has written a book discussing popular myths such as Christianity, Judaism, whatever.

I ran into something very similar to this many years ago when I went in on a job interview. This was pre-internet so all I had to go on was a very short ad printed in the newspaper. There was little way for me to know that the organization where I was going was a conservative Christian organization. But I found out when I got there.

Sitting in the waiting room for about half an hour I had time to peruse their materials. There was a lot about cults. Cults such as those Jim Jones people who commited mass suicide with poisoned Kool-Aid. Cults such as the Mormons. Cults such as Unitarians and Catholics.

Hey, if you have the TRUTH and everyone else is wrong, facts are just facts, right? You bet. But what happens when you and your minister don't quite see eye to eye 100 percent of the way? Is he just a cultist, too? Or are you?