was discharged from the state prison, he and his father applied
to the Governor for a pardon, and that the Governor replied in writing,
that on the ground of the prisoner's being a minor at the time of his
discharge from prison, a pardon would not be necessary, and that he
would be entitled to all the rights of a citizen on his coming of age.
They also applied to two respectable counsellors of the Supreme Court,
and they confirmed the Governor's opinion. All this evidence was
rejected. It appeared that the prisoner was seventeen years old when
convicted of the felony, and was nineteen when discharged from prison.
The rejection of the evidence was approved by the Supreme Court on the
ground that the prisoner was bound to know the law, and was presumed to
do so, and his conviction was accordingly confirmed.

Here a young man, innocent so far as his conduct in this case was
involved, was condemned, for acting in good faith upon the advice,
(mistaken advice it may be conceded,) of one governor and two lawyers to
whom he applied for information as to his rights; and this condemnation
has proceeded upon the assumed ground, conceded to be false in fact,
that he knew the advice given to him was wrong. On this judicial fiction
the young man, in the name of justice, is sent to prison, punished for a
mere mistake, and a mistake made in pursuance of such advice. It cannot
be, consistently with the radical principles of criminal law to which I
have referred, and the numerous authorities which I have quoted, that
this man was guilty of a crime, that his _mistake_ was a crime, and I
think the judges who pronounced his condemnation, upon their own
principles, better than their victim, deserved the punishment which they
inflicted.

The condemnation of Miss Anthony, her good faith being conceded, would
do no less violence to any fair administration of justice.

One other matter will close what I have to say. Miss Anthony believed,
and was advised that she had a right to vote. She may also have been
advised, as was clearly the fact, that the question as to her right
could not be brought before the courts for trial, without her voting or
offering to vote, and if either was criminal, the one was as much so as
the other. Therefore she stands, now arraigned as a criminal, for taking
the only steps by which it was possible to bring the great
constitutional question as to her right, before the tribunals of the
country for adjudication. If for