Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/985

Rh It is true a jury was impaneled, but this was all, for we are informed that, at the conclusion of the opinion, Judge Selden requested that the case should be submitted to the jury upon the question of intent, and upon certain propositions of law; but the court declined to submit the case upon any question whatever, and directed them to render a verdict of guilty against the defendant.

I have been pained to witness, on the part of some of our newspapers, a disposition to treat this decision with indifference, by some even with levity. Has it come to this, that because she is a woman the defendant can not get a fair and impartial trial? The case of the inspectors was not treated in this way—but then they were men.

To the Editor of the Syracuse Journal:—I wish to call the attention of the readers of The Journal, especially legal ones, to the underlying intent and unjust perversions of the Albany Law Journal of this month, in its leading article, entitled "Can a Judge direct a Verdict of Guilty?"

This Law Journal, which professes to lead the legal craft of the Empire State in the devious ways of legal justice, has but now, thirteen months after its date, a review of Miss Anthony's celebrated trial, as conducted by Judge Ward Hunt. Having taken a year and a month to get the first principles of justice and of constitutional law through his head, the belated editor of that law journal has come to the conclusion—self-evident as it ought to be to a child—that a judge has no legal right to take from an accused person the right of trial by jury. Sapient editor, wise man! No second Solomon, you. You, with all your legal lore, have at last managed to see, in a year and a month, what the veriest simple woman in the land, all uneducated as women are in the technicalities of the law, had no difficulty of seeing in an hour. Right of trial by jury holds all other legal rights within its grasp. Deprive a man or woman of that, and of what use is your habeas corpus act, of what use your law of penalties or acquittal? The terrors of the middle ages, the lettres de cachet, sequestration, confiscation, rayless dungeons, and iron masks at once rise in view.

We will, however, allow to this editor one grain of sense, as he acknowledges the dangerous power in the hands of judges of the United States Circuit Court, a power they possess outside of right, a power through which one of them can, as did Judge Ward Hunt in Miss Anthony's case, transcend his legal rights, to warp and bend constitutional guarantees to his own ends, and having so done that there is no legal appeal from his unwarrantable decision. A United States judge is practically irresponsible. Nothing can touch him for illegality in office but a Congressional impeachment, which from a combination of circumstances is difficult to bring about. He holds the dearest rights of American citizens at pleasure in his hands, and this is law and justice in the United States. These are solely and entirely man-made laws. No woman had finger or tongue in the matter.

But Mr. Albany Law Journal editor, after acknowledging their injustice toward accused persons, and their dangers to the liberties of every individual, tells Miss Anthony that "if she" is dissatisfied with "our laws," meaning, of course, man-made laws like these, "she would better adopt the methods of reform that men use, or, better still, emigrate." Was ever a more disreputable phrase penned? Disgraceful to its author, and doubly so, as he pretends to be a teacher of law. This is the language of a very Nero come to judgment.

"Our laws." Whose laws, pray? The laws of men made for "our" benefit alone. Is this what Mr. Editor of the Albany Law Journal means? Pray, Mr. Albany Law Journal, what are "the methods of reform that men use," when they are dissatisfied with "our laws," only to speak against such laws, and to vote for men to make better ones? Miss Anthony has tried both of "the methods of reform men use," and for doing the last was arrested, tried, fined, and all but imprisoned. It seems "the methods of reform men use" are, after all, not just the kind of methods for Miss Anthony and her friends to use. But then, Mr. Albany Law Journal allows Miss Anthony and Mrs. Gage one other alternative, which he deems a "better one," i.e., to "emigrate."