Susan B. Anthony: Women's Right to Vote

Susan B. Anthony was a strong supporter in fighting for women's rights. Before her speech, "Women's Right to Vote," Anthony was arrested and indicted for leading a group of women to the voting polls in New York. Anthony was convicted and fined, but refused to pay. Anthony made her speech in order to fight for women's voting rights. She believed that because women were persons and citizens, she insisted that they were full entitled to vote. Anthony used the Constitution in order to back up her argument. She stated, "It was we, the people, not we the white male citizens, nor we the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union" (AR 279). Anthony also used The Declaration of Independence as a document to prove her point. The Declaration states that all men are created equal...To secure these, governments are insitituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Anthony explains in her speech that in that statement there is not government authority over rights or exclusion of any class. That means, that the rights of all men, and women, have a voice in the government. Anthony stated, "For any State to make sex a qualification, which must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, an ex-post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land" (AR 280). Anthony believes that the government is not a democracy, it is a an aristocracy. She believes the government is based on sex, which makes the fathers, brothers, husbands, sons the leaders over the mothers, sisters, wifes, and daughters in every household. Men clearly are dominant in society. All laws use masculine pronouns such as he, his and him. There is no mention of feminane pronouns in important declarations and documents. Anthony declares that women are being discriminated against, and they are being treated unjustly. Anthony followed Thoreau's idealogy by standing up against the government. She refused to pay the fine that was presented infront of her, and she fought for what she believed in. Women like Susan B. Anthony were the many individuals who never stopped fighting until what they believed in was changed.

Anthony, Susan B. "Women's Right to Vote." The American Reader. Ed. Diane Ravitch. New York: New York, 2000.277-285. Print.