ed, applies to women, first because women are
citizens and secondly because of their "previous condition of
servitude." Defining a slave as a person robbed of the proceeds of his
labor and subject to the will of another, she showed how state laws
relating to married women had placed them in the position of slaves.

As she analyzed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments
and cited authorities for her conclusions, she left little doubt in
the minds of those who heard her that women were persons and citizens
whose privileges and immunities could not be abridged.

On this note she concluded: "We ask the juries to fail to return
verdicts of 'guilty' against honest, law-abiding, tax-paying United
States citizens for offering their votes at our elections ... We ask
the judges to render true and unprejudiced opinions of the law, and
wherever there is room for doubt to give its benefit on the side of
liberty and equal rights to women, remembering that 'the true rule of
interpretation under our national constitution, especially since its
amendments, is that anything for human rights is constitutional,
everything against human rights unconstitutional.' And it is on this
line that we propose to fight our battle for the ballot--all
peaceably, but nevertheless persistently through to complete triumph,
when all United States citizens shall be recognized as equals before
the law."

* * * * *

Speaking twenty-one nights in succession was arduous. "So few see or
feel any special importance in the impending trial," she jotted down
in her diary. In towns, such as Geneva, where she had old friends,
like Elizabeth Smith Miller, she was assured of a friendly welcome and
a good audience.[300]

[Illustration: "The Woman Who Dared"]

As the collections, taken up after her lectures, were too small to pay
her expenses, her financial problems weighed heavily. The notes she
had signed for _The Revolution_ were in the main still unpaid, and
one of her creditors was growing impatient. She had recently paid her
counsel, Judge Selden, $200 and John Van Voorhis, $75, leaving only
$3.45 in her defense fund, but as usual a few of her loyal friends
came to her aid, and both Judge Selden and John Van Voorhis, deeply
interested in her courageous fight, gave most of their time without
charge.[301]

If this campaign was a problem financially, it was a success in the
matter of nation-wide publicity. The New Yo