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It is a bye-week for the regular podcast, but this is a bonus from the newsletter On This Day in Women’s History. If you sign up for it on Patreon or on Substack, every Monday you will get a small story about what historical women did on that day. If today were Monday, it might say something like this:
On November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony, age 52, marched into her local polling place at the head of fourteen other women. They were there to vote, like any other respectable citizen. And their names were on the list of registered voters, so it should have been easy and straightforward, right? The only trouble was that Susan B. Anthony was a woman. And somehow that was a problem.
The US Constitution, as written in 1787, does not mention women at all. The word is never used, nor is the word “man.” It only talks about “persons” and “citizens.” It doesn’t grant any person, citizen, man, woman, or child the right to vote. Instead it says that the people in the House of Representatives will be chosen by electors and those “Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.”
In other words, the states set the qualifications they want for their voters, and the federal elections use the same qualifications. There was nothing in the US Constitution to stop states from enfranchising their women. Only they didn’t. Traditionally, voting was restricted not by gender, but by property ownership. That mostly meant men, but not always and sometimes women voted. (I have a sponsors-only bonus episode on women who voted very, very early in US colonial history.)
But then the states pulled themselves together and said we can’t have that now, so they wrote their state constitutions, and they did use the words that laid it out: voting is for men only.
After the Civil War, the women’s rights movement was bitterly disappointed in the 15th Amendment. It was the US government’s first foray into taking back some of those rights granted to the states, and it said, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude–“
Supporters of women’s suffrage had been hoping that as long as Congress was going to make it clear that race and color should not disenfranchise anyone, then they might put something in there about gender too. When that didn’t happen, many women’s rights activists refused their support to this amendment. They are now repeatedly excoriated for being racist (which was sometimes true, I agree), but let’s not forget that about half of all Black people are female. The 15th amendment did nothing for them, or white women either. I think I can understand being upset and disappointed.
Susan B. Anthony knew all of this perfectly well. Her voting escapade in 1872 was based on an interpretation of the 14th amendment which said, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
Susan planned to argue that when the New York State Constitution limited voting rights to the male population, that was a case of the state of New York abridging her privileges as a citizen of the United States.
On November 1, she had registered as a voter, along with her friends. When election official Mr. Beverly Jones protested that he didn’t think he could put her on the rolls, she asked him if he was acquainted with the 14th amendment. He later testified that “She wanted to know if under that she was a citizen and had a right to vote. At this time, Mr. Warner [the Supervisor of Elections] said, ‘young man, how are you going to get around that. I think you will have to register their names’—or something to that effect.”
So Mr. Beverly Jones did register Susan, and on November 5th she came and voted. The election officials did not stop her (though they threatened to), but in the end they allowed it.
Susan went home and wrote to her friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton that “Well I have been & gone done it! Positively voted the republican ticket—strait—this A.M. at 7 o’clock & swore my vote in at that.” (Incidentally, the Republicans won the 1872 election. Ulysses S. Grant took his second term.)
But Susan didn’t expect to bask in her success. She knew perfectly well that officials higher up than the local polling place would consider her actions voter fraud. A few weeks later she was arrested for “criminal voting.” And it was federal officials who arrested her, not New York state officials, so that made a bit of a hash of her legal argument.
Susan was offered bail, but she would not pay it. She preferred to go to jail. She was bailed out by others, and without her consent, but she wasn’t going to waste this opportunity. In the seven months between her bailing out and her trial, she canvassed the whole county, making sure that anyone who could possibly be chosen to be on the jury had already heard her side of the story. The exasperated judge had to move the venue of her trial because there was literally no one in the county who didn’t already have an opinion on the case.
In the end it didn’t matter. The new judge denied her right to have a jury at all and declared her guilty. She was fined $100, which she refused to pay.
The government declined to pursue the matter any further, which was a bit of a disappointment. It would have made good publicity.
Susan never did get to vote legally in any federal election. She died in 1906. The 19th amendment was not ratified until 1920, and it said, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
It was widely known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.
My major source for today is the National Archives on Susan B. Anthony. If you would like to hear what happened to other women on other days in history, please sign up for the newsletter on Patreon or on Substack. The basic newsletter is free. But if you can spring for the paid version, you get far more and November is the perfect time to sign up because this month I am donating half of all profits to a nonprofit focused on girls and women. Whether you’re able to contribute or not, please vote for which nonprofit we help.
The music in this episode was composed by Maria Szymanowska in 1819. It was recorded by Gregor Quendel and published under Creative Commons license.