page_title: Trial of Susan B. Anthony
section_title: Press coverage
hierarchical_section_title: Trial of Susan B. Anthony / Arrest and conviction for voting / Press coverage
caption_attribution_description: English: A caricature of Susan B. Anthony on the front page of the New York Daily Graphic. It appeared a few days before her trial for voting, and it accompanied a story about the upcoming trial.
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: The Associated Press provided daily reports of the trial that were printed in newspapers across the country.  In some cases, newspapers filled several columns with the arguments prepared by the lawyers and with the judge's rulings.  Some newspapers were harshly critical of the women voters. The Rochester Union and Advertiser said their action, "goes to show the progress of female lawlessness instead of the principle of female suffrage" and that "the efforts of Susan B. Anthony & Co. to unsex themselves and vote as men will be so far as they are successful both criminal and ridiculous."
  The primary topic of interest was Judge Hunt's refusal to allow the jury to deliberate and vote on a verdict. The New York Sun called for Hunt's impeachment, saying that he had overthrown civil liberty.
  The Trenton State Sentinel and Capital asked, "Why have juries at all if Judges can find verdicts—or direct them to be found, and then refuse to poll the jury?"
  Shortly before the trial began, the New York Daily Graphic ran a full-page caricature of Anthony on its front cover with the title "The Woman Who Dared". It depicted Anthony with a grim expression and wearing men's boots with spurs.  In the background was a woman in a police uniform and men carrying groceries and babies. The accompanying story said that if Anthony were acquitted at the trial, the world would come to resemble the cartoon, and women would "acknowledge in the person of Miss Anthony the pioneer who first pursued the way they sought."
caption: Caricature of Susan B. Anthony in the Daily Graphic just before her trial
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