Judge Hunt: The Court must insist— (Here the prisoner sat down.)[Pg 689]
Judge Hunt: The prisoner will stand up. (Here Miss Anthony arose again.) The sentence of the Court is that you pay a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the prosecution.
Miss Anthony: May it please your honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. All the stock in trade I possess is a $10,000 debt, incurred by publishing my paper—The Revolution—four years ago, the sole object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your man-made, unjust, unconstitutional forms of law, that tax, fine, imprison, and hang women, while they deny them the right of representation in the Government; and I shall work on with might and main to pay every dollar of that honest debt, but not a penny shall go to this unjust claim. And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old revolutionary maxim, that "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God."
Judge Hunt: Madam, the Court will not order you committed until the fine is paid.Immediately after the verdict, Miss Anthony, her counsel, her friends, and the jury, passed out together talking over the case. Said Judge Selden: "The war has abolished something besides slavery, it has abolished jury trial. The decision of Justice Hunt was most iniquitous. He had as much right to order me hung to the nearest tree, as to take the case from the jury and render the decision he did," and he bowed his head with shame at this prostitution of legal power.
The jury with freedom now to use their tongues, when too late, also canvassed the trial and the injury done. "The verdict of guilty would not have been mine, could I have spoken," said one, "nor should I have been alone. There were others who thought as I did, but we could not speak."
The decision of Judge Hunt was severely criticised.[1]Even among those who believed women had no right to vote, and who did not hesitate to say that Miss Anthony's punishment was inadequate, there was a wide questioning as to his legal right to take the case from the jury and enter the verdict of guilty, without permitting them in any way to indicate their opinion. It was deemed a tyrannical and arrogant assumption on the part of Judge Hunt, and one which endangered the rights of the whole people. It was pertinently asked, "If this may be done in one instance, why not in all?" and "If the courts may thus arbitrarily direct what verdicts shall be rendered, what becomes of the right to trial by an impartial jury, which the Constitution guarantees to all persons alike, whether male or female?" These questions were of the gravest importance, and
- ↑ see Appendix.
