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Rebeka DePierro HIS 200: Applied History Southern New Hampshire University October 15, 2023
Draft Submission: Impact of Susan B. Anthony
The women’s suffrage movement was a decade long fight to win women the right to vote in the U.S. It took nearly one hundred long and hard years to win this right. Ending with the ratification
of the 19
th
amendment on August 18, 1920, which declared that women deserved all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship that men had. There were many women that stood at the front of this movement such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Susan B. Anthony each having their own impact on the movement. To understand the type of impact that these women had its important to look at historical events that led up to the end of the movement and the ratification of the nineteenth amendment. Susan B. Anthony had a substantial impact on the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the ratification of the nineteenth amendment because of her speech’s, writings, and association with other women fighting for woman’s rights.
When it came to the women’s suffrage movement there were many people who impacted it including Susan B. Anthony. She set an example when she was arrested for illegal voting during the presidential election of 1872. Her arrest and trial along with several other women brought about a change in the movement. While on trial the lawyer stated that “We do not claim in the case, gentlemen, that Miss Anthony is of that class of people who go about “repeating.” We don't claim that she went from place to place for the purpose of offering her vote. But we do claim that upon the 5th of November 1872, she voted, and whether she believed that she had a
right to vote or not, it being a question of law, that she is within the Statute” (Library of Congress, 1874). This opening statement showed that although women believed they had the right to vote men did not because the constitution did not state it. However, when Anthony voted it caused a chain reaction and people began to question whether women could vote. Mr. Selden fought for Susan B. Anthony as he made the argument that she was only in court because of her sex making this the first instance in which a woman had been charged in a criminal court based solely with her sex (Library of Congress, 1874). He states that this case in legal aspect raised three questions. The first being was the defendant legally entitled to vote at the election in question. The second being, if she was not entitled to vote but thought that she was and voted in good faith did her voting constitute a crime under the statue before referred to. And the third did the defendant vote in good faith in that belief (Library of Congress, 1874). These questions, although particularly important, still left many to question the legality of Susan B. Anthony’s actions. However, she received a guilty verdict by an all-male jury. The fact that the jury was all male begs the question would she have received a guilty verdict if there would have been women
on the jury? A question we will never know the answer to. However, this trial started an argument that would after several years be answered and that was can women vote. Susan B. Anthonys trial was one of many that impacted the women’s suffrage movement. Before her arrest
and guilty verdict Susan B. Anthony made an impact on the movement with her abundance of speeches and writings.
Susan B. Anthony had numerous manuscripts whether delivered or not between 1848 and
1877. One speech that she delivered was to the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives on March 8
th
, 1884. Her statement argued for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote. She made this statement just sixteen years after
legislators had first introduced a federal women’s suffrage movement (Today in History, 2023). Anthony delivered this statement in yet another attempt to get women the right to vote. She had been petitioning Congress for many years, but it still took far longer for them to approve this amendment. According to Today in History it was not until June of 1919 that Congress approved the “Anthony Amendment” in honor of Susan B. Anthony who had died in 1906 (2023). The fact
that the amendment was nicknamed after Susan B. Anthony is just one of many things that show the impact she had on the movement and the later ratification of the nineteenth amendment. This was not the only speech she had given. According to the Library of Congress Anthony gave several different speeches such as “No Union with Slave Holders” which she delivered in 1861 and was later mobbed several times for delivering, or the Address that she delivered before the Union Agriculture Society at the Yates County Fair around 1858 (Library of Congress, 1848). All
her speeches and writings give us a look into the movement and the way in which she impacted the movement. Susan B. Anthony was constantly giving speeches and addresses to help the movement move forward and eventually gain women the right to vote. However, with all her speeches and addresses she could not have done it on her own. Susan B. Anthony made an enormous impact on the movement, but she did not do it alone the women that she associated with and fought along side also helped impact the movement. These women include Elizabth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and many more. One way that the relationship between Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton impacted the movement was their founding of the National Women Suffrage Association
(NWSA) in 1869. Which later joined with the American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA) founded by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) (Foner & Garraty, 2014). According to an article titled National
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American Woman Suffrage Association “With the amalgamation into nawsa, the women's movement became both more focused and more conservative, seeking only the vote and often justifying it in terms of women's “purifying” influence rather than their inherent equality with men. Between 1890 and 1896, Wyoming and Utah entered the Union with woman suffrage in their constitutions, and Colorado and Idaho approved it by referenda” (Foner & Garraty, 2014) The Union between these two associations and the women who founded them impacted the movement in many ways. The impact that this union had gave way to women such as Carrie Chapman Catt who in 1915 organized NAWSA’s winning plan based on the principle that each state that gave women the vote could later pressed to support the effort on the federal level (Foner & Garraty, 2014). The impact that these women made both individually and together helped to eventually win women the right to vote. In conclusion, Susan B. Anthony had a significant impact on the women’s suffrage movement as well as the ratification of the 19
th
amendment in many ways. Through the speeches and writings that she gave over several years to the people associated with her. There are many ways that Susan B. Anthony impacted the movement but the biggest was her arrest and guilty verdict because it gave way too many questions that once answered one woman the right to vote as well as well as all the rights and responsibilities as citizens that men had. Her impact was large. Even if the ratification of the 19
th
amendment happened after her death, she helped pave the way for women of today because she fought a fight no one thought she could win.
Reference Page
Anthony, S. B. (1848) Susan B. Anthony Papers: Speeches and Writings, -1895; List of speeches.
- 1895. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mss11049036/
.
Anthony, S. B., Catt, C. C., Anthony, S. B., United States Circuit Court, Susan B. Anthony Collection & National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection. (1874)
An account of the proceedings on the trial of Susan B. Anthony on the charge of illegal voting at the Presidential election in Nov., and on the trial of Beverly W. Jones, Edwin T. Marsh and William B. Hall, the inspectors of elections by whom her vote was received
. Rochester, N.Y.: Daily Democrat and Chronicle Book Print. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/97187514/
.
NATIONAL AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION. (2014). In E. Foner & J. Garraty (Eds.), The Reader's Companion to American History. Houghton Mifflin. Retrieved October 22, 2023, from https://search.credoreference.com/articles/Qm9va0FydGljbGU6MzEyMTMxMw==?
aid=105049
. Today in History - March 8 Susan B. Anthony Makes a Statement. (2023, March 8). US Official News, NA. https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/apps/doc/A740296009/STND?
u=nhc_main&sid=ebsco&xid=33926cad