"Mrs. Stanton first met Miss Susan B. Anthony when the latter was a demure young Quakeress. The two ever worked together in friendship and sympathy. Mrs. Stanton said of their joint labors: "We never met without issuing a pronouncement on some question. In thought and sympathy we are one, and in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In writing we did better work than either could alone. While she is slow and analytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am the better writer, she the better critic. She supplies the facts and statistics, I the philosophy and rhetoric, and, together, we have made arguments that have stood unshaken through the storms of long years--arguments that no one has answered. Our speeches may be considered the united product of our two brains.""
- Cooney, Winning the Vote |
The two were the most influential women of the suffrage movement and were close friends throughout their lives. Mrs. Stanton said:
"It is often said, by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been my good angel, always pushing and goading me to work, and that but for her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I have. On the other hand it has been said that I forged the thunderbolts and she fired them." - Eighty Years And More: Reminiscences 1815-1897 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton |
On Mrs. Stanton's death, Susan B. Anthony was quoted in her obituary saying:
"Through the early days, when the world was against us, we stood together. Mrs. Stanton was always a courageous woman, a leader of thought and new movements. She was a most finished writer, and every State paper presented to Congress or the State Legislatures in the early days was written by Mrs. Stanton. "I cannot express myself at all as I feel. I am too crushed to say much, but, if she had outlived me, she would have found fine words with which to express our friendship." - Obituary of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The New York Times, October 27, 1902 |
Throughout her life, Susan B. Anthony was a leader and firebrand for the women's movement. This included her arrest and trial for illegal voting in 1872.
"Anthony was among the women who went to the polls during the November 1872 elections. She was permitted to cast her ballot - and was promptly arrested for voting illegally. Anthony was more than prepared to go to jail; she was determined to take her case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. However, due to gross irregularities in her trial, Anthony lost her chance to appeal. She was found guilty but refused to pay her fine." - Stalcup, Women's Suffrage |
Speaking at her trial, Ms. Anthony made her argument:
"The preamble of the federal constitution says:
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and established this constitution for the United States of America."
It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings or liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people--women as well as men. And it is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government--the ballot."
- Susan B. Anthony, An account of the proceedings of the trial of Susan B. Anthony, on the charge of illegal voting, at the presidential election in Nov. 1872. The Library of Congress
"The preamble of the federal constitution says:
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and established this constitution for the United States of America."
It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings or liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people--women as well as men. And it is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government--the ballot."
- Susan B. Anthony, An account of the proceedings of the trial of Susan B. Anthony, on the charge of illegal voting, at the presidential election in Nov. 1872. The Library of Congress