the more so because from this court there was no appeal. To deprive Miss Anthony of the benefit of jury trial seemed, however, in unison with every step taken in the cases of women under the XIV. Amendment.
The design of the Government was evidently to crush at once, and arbitrarily, all efforts of women for equality of rights with men. The principles of law and justice involved did not, however, apply to women alone, but to all persons alike. Where the rights of the most insignificant or humble are outraged those of all are endangered. The decisions in these cases are the more remarkable since they were based on the most ultra State Rights doctrine, and yet were rendered in every instance by members of the Republican party which held its position by reason of its recent success against the extreme demands of State sovereignty. The right of women to vote under national protection was but the logical result of the political guarantees of the war, and Republican leaders should have been anxious to clinch their war record by legislative and judicial decisions.
But a more thorough recognition of the State Rights theory never was presented than in the proceedings of this Judge of the Supreme Court in his verdict against Miss Anthony, nor a more absolute exhibition of National power in State affairs than his decision in the case of the Inspectors, who were State officers, working under State authority and State laws, and not under authority derived from the Constitution of the United States, but who were tried by an United States judge, and punished for what was held as a crime against the State of New York—a monstrous usurpation of National authority! Each of these trials was, in its way, an example of authority overriding law, and an evidence of the danger to the liberties of the people from a practically irresponsible judiciary. Men need to feel their indebtedness and their responsibility to those who place them in position; first, in order to preserve them from despotism; and, second, that they may be removed when infirmity demands the substitution of a competent person in their place.
Although for a period little has been said in regard to the usurpations of the judiciary, a time will come in the history of the country when the course of Justice Hunt will be recalled as a dangerous precedent.
It was more than a year after Miss Anthony's trial was completed before her case received notice in the chief legal journal of the State of New York. At that time, in an article entitled, "Can a Judge Direct a Verdict of Guilty?"[1] Judge Hunt's course in refusing to
- ↑ see Appendix.
