of
women. Now charged with crime and arrested, she suddenly began to
sense the import of what was happening to her.

When the marshal suggested that she report alone to the United States
Commissioner, she emphatically refused to go of her own free will and
they left the house together, she extending her wrists for the
handcuffs and he ignoring her gesture. As they got on the streetcar
and the conductor asked for her fare, she further embarrassed the
marshal by loudly announcing, "I'm traveling at the expense of the
government. This gentleman is escorting me to jail. Ask him for my
fare." When they arrived at the commissioner's office, he was not
there, but a hearing was set for November 29.

On that day, in the office where a few years before fugitive slaves
had been returned to their masters, Susan was questioned and
cross-examined, and she felt akin to those slaves. Proudly she
admitted that she had voted, that she had conferred with Judge Selden,
that with or without his advice she would have attempted to vote to
test women's right to the franchise.[293]

"Did you have any doubt yourself of your right to vote?" asked the
commissioner.

"Not a particle," she replied.

On December 23, 1872, in Rochester's common council chamber, before a
large curious audience, Susan, the other women voters, and the
election inspectors were arraigned. People expecting to see bold
notoriety-seeking women were surprised by their seriousness and
dignity. "The majority of these law-breakers," reported the press,
"were elderly, matronly-looking women with thoughtful faces, just the
sort one would like to see in charge of one's sick-room, considerate,
patient, kindly."[294]

The United States Commissioner fixed their bail at $500 each. All
furnished bail but Susan, who through her counsel, Henry R. Selden,
applied for a writ of habeas corpus, demanding immediate release and
challenging the lawfulness of her arrest. When a writ of habeas corpus
was denied and her bail increased to $1,000 by United States District
Judge Nathan K. Hall, sitting in Albany, Susan was more than ever
determined to resist the interference of the courts in her
constitutional right as a citizen to vote. She refused to give bail,
emphatically stating that she preferred prison.

Seeing no heroism but only disgrace in a jail term for his client and
unwilling to let her bring this ignominy upon herself. Henry Selden
chivalrously assured her that this was a time