Susan B. Anthony,
Defendant

An Account of the Proceedings on
the Trial of Susan B. Anthony. . . .
Rochester: 1874
Rare Book & Special Collections Division

[Susan B. Anthony & Elizabeth
Cady Stanton]
Albumen print, ca. 1870s
Manuscript Division

Susan B. Anthony's personal copy of An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony is one of nearly four hundred items from her personal library of feminist and antislavery literature that Anthony gave to the Library of Congress in 1903.

At the trial, the judge penned his decision before hearing the case (his first criminal case) and discharged the jury because he maintained that there were no questions of fact for them to consider. He found Anthony guilty of voting illegally, fined her $100, and then made the mistake of asking her if she had anything to say.

"Yes, your honor," seethed Anthony, "I have many things to say; for in your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored. Robbed of the fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject; and not only myself individually, but all of my sex, are, by your honor's verdict, doomed to political subjection under this, so-called, form of government."

Anthony's copy of the Trial is inscribed by her as a gift to the Library and has a number of items tipped in after the text, including Anthony's petition to Congress seeking remission of the fine and the congressional committee report denying her request.