In the 1800s, women in the United States had few legal rights and did not have the right to vote. This speech was given by Susan B. Anthony after her arrest for casting an illegal vote in the presidential election of 1872. She was tried and then fined $100 but refused to pay.
Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment1 for the alleged2 crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a 
lawful3 right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.
The preamble4 of the Federal Constitution says:
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity5, provide for the common defense6, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings7 of liberty to ourselves and our posterity8, do ordain9 and establish 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 the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of 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 a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment10 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 ballot11.
For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation12 of the supreme13 law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld14 from women and their female posterity.
To them this government has no just powers derived15 from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious16 aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy17 of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains18 all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord19, and rebellion into every home of the nation.
Webster, Worcester, and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office.
The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge20 their privileges or immunities21. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void, precisely22 as is every one against Negroes.
Susan B. Anthony - 1873
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