Your denial of my citizen's
right to vote is the denial of my right of consent as one of the
governed, the denial of my right of representation as one of the
taxed, the denial of my right to a trial by a jury of my peers as
an offender against law, therefore, the denial of my sacred
rights to life, liberty, property, and--

Judge HUNT: The Court can not allow the prisoner to go on.

Miss ANTHONY: But your honor will not deny me this one and only
poor privilege of protest against this high-handed outrage upon
my citizen's rights. May it please the Court to remember that
since the day of my arrest last November, this is the first time
that either myself or any person of my disfranchised class has
been allowed a word of defense before judge or jury--

Judge HUNT: The prisoner must sit down; the Court can not allow
it.

Miss ANTHONY: All my prosecutors, from the 8th Ward corner
grocery politician, who entered the complaint, to the United
States Marshal, Commissioner, District Attorney, District Judge,
your honor on the bench, not one is my peer, but each and all are
my political sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case to
the jury, as was clearly your duty, even then I should have had
just cause of protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but,
native or foreign, white or black, rich or poor, educated or
ignorant, awake or asleep, sober or drunk, each and every man of
them was my political superior; hence, in no sense, my peer.
Even, under such circumstances, a commoner of England, tried
before a jury of lords, would have far less cause to complain
than should I, a woman, tried before a jury of men. Even my
counsel, the Hon. Henry R. Selden, who has argued my cause so
ably, so earnestly, so unanswerably before your honor, is my
political sovereign. Precisely as no disfranchised person is
entitled to sit upon a jury, and no woman is entitled to the
franchise, so, none but a regularly admitted lawyer is allowed to
practice in the courts, and no woman can gain admission to the
bar--hence, jury, judge, counsel, must all be of the superior
class.

Judge HUNT: The Court must insist--the prisoner has been tried
according to the established forms of law.

Miss ANTHONY: Yes, your honor, but by forms of law all made by
m