Sold – The Shining Vision of Susan B. Anthony

“Woman’s rights means perfect equality for women in every thing and every place – equal freedom and franchise in the government – equal chances at play and work – equal powers in church, society and the home – never to be treated as a child or inferior – always as an equal, responsible human being.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Anthony and their followers formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. In late 1872, the organization not yet managing to seize the public’s attention, Anthony determined to attract attention by casting a very public vote, which she did on November 5, 1872. On January 24, 1873, a grand jury of 20 men returned an indictment against her, the charge being that she voted in a Congressional election “without having a lawful right to vote…, the said Susan B. Anthony being then and there a person of the female sex.” She was convicted and sentenced to pay a $100 fine. On January 12, 1874, Anthony petitioned Congress requesting “that the fine imposed upon your petitioner be remitted, as an expression of the sense of this high tribunal that her conviction was unjust.” Congress did not act, and on March 29, 1874, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was legal to limit suffrage to men. So with both Congress and the courts coming forward  as opposed to women’s suffrage, and the public apparently apathetic, the cause was at its nadir.

Rather than being overwhelmed by the seeming impossibility of the task before her, or throwing in the towel in the face of such discouragement, Anthony used that exact moment to illuminate her vision and expound her goals, offering specifics and examples. Autograph Letter Signed, Rochester, N.Y., December 1, 1874, to a young man who’d written her about women’s rights. “Yours of October 7th saying you had previously solicited a letter from me on the subject of “woman’s rights” is before me. I cannot imagine what you can wish me to say to you on that vast question; woman’s rights means simply human rights – thus much and no more. As for instance, when the wife dies it is right that the surviving husband shall remain in possession of the proceeds of the joint labors of their marriage co-partnership – the lands, the stocks, the cash, the children; then it is equally rights that when the husband dies that the surviving wife shall remain in possession of them all. Instead of as now having the law step into her home and set her off with one third the estate – the joint earnings of herself and husband – and only a life interest in that third – and appoint a guardian over her children and an administrator over their two thirds of the estate – the proceeds of her and her husband’s joint earnings. It is justice, not favors, that women ask. Woman’s rights means perfect equality for women in every thing and every place – equal freedom and franchise in the government – equal chances at play and work – equal powers in church, society and the home – never to be treated as a child or inferior – always as an equal, responsible human being.

“Well now, my young sir, will this fill the bill you ordered? If not, please be a little more specific in making out your demand next time. I really did, not, do not know what it is you could so much wish from me as to move you to write two letters and yet not make me comprehend what, precisely, you wanted.” The letter is newly discovered, and is apparently unpublished. It has never before been offered for sale.