It is fashionable, we know, just now to heap contumely upon women who demand to be allowed to enjoy their civil political rights. Ridicule is the chief weapon employed against them, and is freely applied to all who advocate their cause. Gentlemen who would blush to be thought negligent in the offices of frivolous gallantry lack the manhood to accord to women their substantial rights. And, strange to say, ladies dwelling in luxurious ease join with the fops of society to cast contempt upon the earnest aspirations of woman for the possession of her just rights. We have acted upon the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, so far as to make all men equal before the law; but women, our mothers, our wives, our sisters, and our daughters, we condemn to inequality—many to servitude. But the cry of women, who, in poverty and want, are driven from the employments of honest industry to indulgence in vice and to the haunts of shame, is rising on every hand, and appeals to the heart with as much power as the wailings of a slave beneath the lash of his master.
The wrongs of Martin Koszta in a foreign land touched the heart of the nation. But the denial of her rights to Miss Susan B. Anthony in a court of the Union is thought to be unworthy the attention of the American Senate. To those who are indifferent whether a woman be deprived of or be permitted to enjoy even the rights which are secured to her by the Constitution, it may be suggested that a bad precedent set in the trial of a woman who has presumed to express her choice as to those who should make laws for her, laws by which her rights are to be affected and her property be taxed, may stand in the way of some man's rights hereafter. It may yet happen, in the revolutions of time, that some one of the majority of your committee may be subjected to an unjust and false accusation, which must be submitted to the judgment of twelve men in the jury-box or of one man on the bench; twelve men fresh from the people and warmed with the instinctive sympathies of humanity, or one man, separated from the people by his station and by the habits of a life passed in seclusion and study. A jury-trial must be the same whether a man or woman be arraigned. And the subject under consideration is important even to men who are regardless of the rights of women.
I shall, therefore, proceed to inquire, as I think the committee ought to have done, whether the memorialist has been deprived, as she alleges, of the right of trial by jury secured to her by the Constitution of the United States. The memorialist claims that the court erred in its ruling, and in taking the case from the jury and directing a verdict against her; and also in refusing to have the jury polled in regard to their verdict; and she prays that her fine may be remitted by act of Congress.
The first question is, whether in a criminal trial, plea not guilty, the jury have a right to render a general verdict involving questions of law as well as fact, under instructions by the court upon matters of law; or whether, when the testimony is not conflicting, the court may take the case from the jury and direct a verdict of guilty to be entered.
It is the practice in civil causes for the court, if there is no conflict in the evidence, to direct a verdict for the plaintiff or for the defendant, because in such case the court may set aside a verdict and grant a new trial in favor of plaintiff or defendant. It would, therefore, be a barren[Pg 703] form to require the jury to deliberate and find a verdict in a