page_title: Trial of Susan B. Anthony
section_title: Arrest
hierarchical_section_title: Trial of Susan B. Anthony / Arrest and conviction for voting / Arrest
caption_attribution_description: English: Henry R. Selden, lawyer and politician from Rochester, NY
context_page_description: United States v. Susan B. Anthony was the criminal trial of Susan B. Anthony in a U.S. federal court in 1873. The defendant was a leader of the women's suffrage movement who was arrested for voting in Rochester, New York in the 1872 elections in violation of state laws that allowed only men to vote. Anthony argued that she had the right to vote because of the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, part of which reads, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
  The judge, Ward Hunt, was a recently appointed U.S. Supreme Court Justice who had responsibility for the federal circuit court in which the trial was held. He did not allow the jurors to discuss this case but instead directed them to find Anthony guilty. On the final day of the trial, Hunt asked Anthony if she had anything to say. Anthony, who had not previously been permitted to speak, responded with what one historian of the women's movement has called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage".
context_section_description: Anthony had not expected to vote, according to Ann D. Gordon, a historian of the women's movement. Instead, she had expected to be turned away from the polls, after which she planned to file a suit in federal court in pursuit of her right to vote. She didn't expect to be arrested either.
  On November 14, warrants for the arrest of the women who had voted and the election inspectors who had allowed them to do so were drawn up and shown to the press. William C. Storrs, one of the commissioners for the U.S. Circuit Court for the Rochester area, sent word to Anthony asking her to meet him in his office.  Anthony replied that she "had no social acquaintance with him and didn't wish to call on him."
  On November 18, a deputy U.S. Marshal came to her house and said that Commissioner Storrs wished to see her in his office.  When Anthony asked why, the officer replied that Storrs wanted to arrest her.  Anthony said that men weren't arrested that way and demanded to be arrested properly.  The deputy then produced the warrant and arrested her.  Told that she was required to go with him, Anthony replied that she wasn't prepared to go immediately.  The deputy said he would go on ahead, and she could follow when she was ready.  Anthony said she would refuse to take herself to court, so the deputy waited while she changed her dress.  Anthony then held out her wrists to be handcuffed, but the officer declined, saying he did not think that would be necessary.
  The other fourteen women who had voted and were subsequently arrested were: Charlotte ("Lottie") B. Anthony, Mary S. Anthony, Ellen S. Baker, Nancy M. Chapman, Hannah M. Chatfield, Jane M. Cogswell, Rhoda DeGarmo, Mary S. Hebard, Susan M. Hough, Margaret Garrigues Leyden, Guelma Anthony McLean, Hannah Anthony Mosher, Mary E. Pulver, and Sarah Cole Truesdale.  
  The election inspectors who had allowed them to vote were arrested also.  Their names were Beverly Waugh Jones, Edwin T. Marsh and William B. Hall.
  Several of the women were involved in various types of reform activity.  DeGarmo had been the recording secretary for the Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848, the second such convention in the country, held two weeks after the Seneca Falls Convention.
  As her attorney, Anthony chose Henry R. Selden, a respected local lawyer who had previously served as lieutenant governor of New York and as a judge on the New York Court of Appeals.  The New York Commercial Advertiser said that Anthony's trial had taken on new importance now that Selden had agreed to take her case, and it suggested that men might need to reconsider their opinion on women's suffrage.  Anthony also frequently consulted the lawyer for the election inspectors, John Van Voorhis, who had previously served as Rochester City Attorney.
  The women who were arrested were held to $500 bail.  Everyone posted bail except Anthony, who refused.
  Storrs issued a commitment authorizing the U.S. marshal to place her in the Albany County jail, but she was never actually held there.
caption: Henry R. Selden
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