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Taking Time for Civics - Highlighting Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony died 14 years, 5 months and five days before passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, but she did VOTE A STRAIGHT REPUBLICAN TICKET!

“On November 18, 1872, Anthony was arrested by a U.S. Deputy Marshal for alleged illegal voting in the 1872 Presidential Election two weeks earlier. She had written to Elizabeth Candy Stanton on the night of the election that she had "positively voted the Republican ticket – straight...". She was tried and convicted seven months later, despite the stirring and eloquent presentation of her arguments that the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed to ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States’ the privileges of citizenship, and which contained no sex qualification, gave women the constitutional right to vote in federal elections. The sentence was a fine, but not imprisonment; and true to her word in court, she never paid the penalty for the rest of her life. The trial gave Anthony the opportunity to spread her arguments to a wider audience than ever before.” (The Trial of Susan B. Anthony for Illegal Voting” by Douglas Linder University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/trials14.htm)

At the request of Susan B. Anthony, Sen. A. A. Sargent, a Republican from California, introduced the 19th Amendment in 1878. (It became known as Susan B. Anthony’s Amendment.) It was defeated 4 times by the Democrat controlled Senate. When the Republican Party regained control of the Congress in 1919, the amendment finally passed the House in May of that year and in the Senate in June. When it was submitted to the states for ratification, 26 of the 36 states that ratified it had Republican legislatures. Of the 9 state legislatures that voted against ratification, 8 were controlled by Democrats. Twelve states, all Republican, had given women full suffrage before the federal amendment. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and final state needed to ratify the amendment. The amendment was certified by the Secretary of State on August 26, 1920.  

The Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was minted in her honor. It is approximately the size of a U.S. quarter and was minted for only four years, 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1999. Anthony dollars were produced at the Philadelphia and Denver mints for all four years, and at the San Francisco mint for all production years except 1999.