Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/979

 Messrs. Jones, Marsh, and Hall, for their manliness and courage in receiving the women's vote and maintaining their right and duty in so doing through their long and unfair trial."

A paper of considerable length was read by Mrs. Hebard, which was very fine, and set forth the woman question in a philosphicalphilosophical [sic] manner.

Mrs. L. C. Smith said that in stamping his seal of death upon trial by jury, Judge Hunt had proved beyond all cavil the inseparability of man's and woman's interests. For in order to withhold the right of franchise from woman he was obliged to abolish trial by jury, man's only safeguard against the tyranny of the bench.

The meeting then adjourned to meet at three o'clock on the 24th inst.

Miss Anthony received material sympathy from many persons who sent money to aid in the payment of her fine—Dr. E. B. Foote, of New York, sending $25, and Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, $100, accompanied by a letter. Dr. Foote has kindly furnished Miss Anthony's reply to him for publication:

, July 2, 1873.


 * Tour letter of June 18, inclosing the quarter of the United States Government's fine for my alleged violation of State law was most welcome. I have waited this acknowledgment from fact of my absence from home since the judge pronounced that verdict and penalty. What a comedy! Such a grave offense and such a paltry punishment!

Now if the United States Government would only demand the payment of the $100 and costs—but it will never do it, because all parties know I will never pay a dime—no, not one. It is quite enough for me pay all the just claims of the trial; my own counsel, etc. I owe no allegiance to the Government's penalties until I have a voice in it, and shall pay none. What the Government can exact it may, whether of cash or imprisonment.

Do you know my one regret now is that I am not possessed of some real estate here in Rochester so that my name would be on the tax list, and I would refuse to pay the taxes thereon, and then I could carry that branch of the question into the Courts. Protests are no longer worth the paper they are written on. Downright resistance, the actual throwing of the tea overboard, is now the word and work. With many thanks for the $25.

Sincerely yours,

, August 15, 1873.


 * I have your letter. So you have not paid your fine; are not able to pay it; and are not willing to pay it! I send you herein the money to pay it. If you shall still decline doing so, then use the money at your own discretion, to promote the cause of woman suffrage.

I trust that you feel kindly toward Judge Hunt. He is an honest man and an able judge. He would oppress no person—emphatically, no woman. It was a light fine that he imposed upon you. Moreover, he did not require you to be imprisoned until it was paid. In taking your case out of the hands of the jury, he did what he believed he had a perfect right to do; and what (&#9758; provided there was no fact to be passed upon) he had precedents for doing. And yet Judge Hunt erred—erred as, but too probably, every other judge would, in like circumstances, have erred. At the hazard of being called, for the ten thousandth time, a visionary and a fanatic for holding opinions which, though they will be entirely welcome to the more enlightened future sense of men, are as entirely repugnant to their present sense, I venture to say that the Judge erred in allowing himself to look into the Constitution. Indeed, yours was a case that neither called for nor permitted the opening of any law-book whatever. You have not forgotten how frequently, in the days of slavery, the Constitution was quoted in behalf of the abomination. As if that paper had been drawn up and agreed upon by both the blacks and the whites, instead of the whites only; and as if slavery protected the rights of the slave instead of annihilating them. I thank God that I was withheld from the great folly and great sin of acknowledging a law for slavery—a law for any piracy—least of all for the superlative piracy. Nor have you forgotten how incessantly, in the late war, our eneimesenemies [sic], Northern as well as Southern, were calling for this observance of the Constitu-