On Women’s Right to Vote

After voting in the 1872 presidential election, suffragette Susan B. Anthony was arrested and charged with a $100 fine. She refused to pay it, instead embarking on a speaking tour around the U.S. to advocate for women’s legal right to vote. In this fiery speech she memorably stated, “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens . . . who formed the Union.” Anthony argued that the fight for women’s right to vote was also a fight for their right to personhood in the eyes of the state, something women were finally granted nearly fifty years later.