. But have you considered in doing this to what
an incompetent jury you are possibly consigning your case, and
with it the hopes of multitudes of your sisters, who, less
favored than yourself, in not actually having been allowed to
enter the sacred precincts of the polls, have put their trust in
you as in one who should not fail, sooner or later, to achieve a
victory for herself and for us all? Have you considered the
result of white male legislation for nearly one hundred years, in
elaborating a jury that must inevitably consist of fools or
knaves, and twelve of these to declare in unison upon a case of
which they have formed no previous opinion, though the papers
have rung with it, and you have lectured every night for more
than a month to crowded houses upon it? But even this difficulty
you are able to meet, and we leave our destiny in your hands with
unfaltering hope and faith, saying only, as many a time before,
God bless Susan B. Anthony.... In conclusion, let me urge upon
you, dear friends, one and all, that each man and woman of you
shall work for impartial suffrage as though the welfare of our
beloved country depended upon the devotion of each single life,
and the day is ours. I am now and always yours for liberty,

ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER.

WASHINGTON, May 5, 1873.

MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY:--Your favor requesting my opinion of the
recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, in
the New Orleans and Bradwell cases, was received yesterday. I had
not then seen those decisions, indeed they were not ready for
distribution until to-day. I have very hastily run over them and
only feel prepared to say that there is nothing in them
necessarily conclusive of the suffrage cases. The opinion of the
Court in the New Orleans cases is given by a bare majority, four
out of the nine justices dissenting, and the majority expressly
say: "We hold ourselves excused from defining the privileges and
immunities of citizens of the United States, which no State can
abridge until some case involving those privileges may make it
necessary to do so." This language leaves us entirely at liberty
to present the question whether suffrage is one of these
"privileges" to t