The Women of the Suffrage Movement. Jane Addams. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Jane Addams
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Жанр произведения: Социология
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isbn: 9788027242818
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one of its resolutions demanded a reform in the laws relating to woman and a re-establishment of her natural rights. Turkey, France, England, Switzerland, Italy, sustain papers devoted to woman's enfranchisement. A Grand International Woman's Rights Congress is to be held in Paris, in September of this year, to which the whole world is invited to send delegates, and this congress is to be under the management of the most renowned liberals of Europe. Come up, then, friends, and celebrate the silver wedding of the woman suffrage movement. Let our twenty-fifth anniversary be one of power; our reform is everywhere advancing, let us redouble our energies and our courage. SUSAN B. ANTHONY, President; MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, Chairman Executive Committee.

      Chapter XXVI:

       No Constitutional Right to Jury or Franchise

       (1874)

       Table of Contents

      Appeal to Congress to remit fine and declare Right to Trial by Jury; report from House Committee for and against, by Butler and Tremaine; from Senate Committee for and against, by Carpenter and Edmunds; pardon of Inspectors by President Grant; Supreme Court decision in suit of Virginia L. Minor against Inspectors for refusing her vote; Representative Butler and Senator Lapham on Woman Suffrage; President Grant's opinion; letter of Judge A.G. Riddle on chief obstacles; death of Sumner; Miss Anthony's speech and letter on Women's Temperance Crusade; lying telegram and N.Y. Herald's truthful report of convention; letter by Miss Anthony, "honesty best policy;" suffrage campaign in Michigan; Beecher-Tilton case.

      Miss Anthony's case continued to attract widespread attention, Judge Hunt's arbitrary action finding few apologists even among opponents of woman suffrage. It was finally decided by her counsel and herself to make an appeal to Congress for the remission of the fine, which, if granted, would be in effect a declaration of the illegality of Judge Hunt's act and a precedent for the future. Judge Selden based his authority for such an appeal on a case in the United States Statutes at Large, chap. 45, p. 802, where a fine of $1,000 and costs, illegally imposed upon Matthew Lyon under the Alien and Sedition Laws, 1799, were refunded with interest to his heirs. Mr. Van Voorhis found an authority also in an act passed by the British Parliament in 1792, correcting the departure from the common law, in respect to the rights of juries, by Lord Mansfield and his associates in the cases of Woodfall and Shipley. This act was passed through the exertions of Lord Camden and Mr. Fox in order to prevent the erroneous decisions of the judges from becoming the law of England.

      Both of the attorneys keenly resented the action of Judge Hunt, Mr. Selden pronouncing it "the greatest judicial outrage ever perpetrated in the United States;" and Mr. Van Voorhis asserting that "trial by jury was completely annihilated in this case, and there is no remedy except to appeal to the justice of Congress to remit the fine and declare that trial by jury does and shall exist in this country." The appeal, or petition, was prepared and Miss Anthony carried it to Washington when she went to the National Convention, January 15, 1874. It was an able document, reciting the facts in the case and the action of the judge, and concluding:

      Your petitioner respectfully submits that, in these proceedings, she has been denied the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all persons accused of crime, the right of trial by jury and the right to have the assistance of counsel for their defense. It is a mockery to call hers a trial by jury; and, unless the assistance of counsel may be limited to the argument of legal questions, without the privilege of saying a word to the jury upon the question of the guilt or innocence in fact of a party charged, or the privilege of ascertaining from the jury whether they do or do not agree to the verdict pronounced by the Court in their name, she has been denied the assistance of counsel for her defense.

      Of the decision of the judge upon the question of the right of your petitioner to vote, she makes no complaint. It was a question properly belonging to the Court to decide, was fully and fairly submitted to the judge, and of his decision, whether right or wrong, your petitioner is well aware she can not here complain. But in regard to her conviction of crime, which she insists, for the reasons above given, was in violation of the principles of the common law, of common morality, of the statute under which she was charged, and of the Constitution—a crime of which she was as innocent as the judge by whom she was convicted—she respectfully asks, inasmuch as the law has provided no means of reviewing the decisions of the judge, or of correcting his errors, that the fine imposed upon your petitioner be remitted, as an expression of the sense of this high tribunal that her conviction was unjust.

      This was presented in the Senate by A.A. Sargent, of California, and in the House by William Loughridge, of Iowa, and was referred to the judiciary committees. In May, Lyman Tremaine, from the House Judiciary Committee, reported adversely on the petition in a lengthy document, which incorporated a letter from District-Attorney Crowley, urging the committee "not to degrade a just judge and applaud a criminal;" and declaring that "Miss Anthony's trial was fair and constitutional and by an impartial jury." (!) Mr. Tremaine's report said: "Congress can not be converted into a national court of review for any and all criminal convictions where it shall be alleged the judge has committed an error." Thus did he deliberately