Speech made by Judge Henry R. Selden
Acting as defense attorney at Susan B. Anthony's trial for voting illegally, June 17, 1873
In the most celebrated document which has been put forth on this side of the
Atlantic, our ancestors declared that "governments derive their just powers
from the consent of the governed."
Blackstone says, "The lawfulness of punishing such criminals (i.e., persons
offending merely against the laws of society) is founded upon this principle:
that the law by which they suffer was made by their own consent; it ita part
of the original contract into which they entered when first they engaged in society;
it was calculated for and has long contributed to their own security."
Quotations, to an unlimited extent, containing similar doctrines from eminent
writers, both English and American, on government, from the time of John Locke
to the present day, might be made. Without adopting this doctrine which bases
the rightfulness of government upon the consent of the governed, I claim that
there is implied in it the narrower and unassailable principle that all citizens
of a State, who are bound by its laws, are entitled to an equal voice in the
making and execution of such laws. The doctrine is well stated by Godwin in his
treatise on Political Justice. He says: "The first and most important principle
that can be imagined relative to the form and structure of government, seems
to be this: that as government is a transaction in the name and for the benefit
of the whole, every member of the community ought to have some share in its administration."
Again, "Government is a contrivance instituted for the security of individuals;
and it seems both reasonable that each man should have a share in providing for
his own security, and probable, that partiality and cabal should by this means
be most effectually excluded."
And again, "To give each man a voice in the public concerns comes nearest
to that admirable idea of which we should never lose sight, the uncontrolled
exercise of private judgment. Each man would thus be inspired with a consciousness
of his own importance, and the slavish feelings that shrink up the soul in the
presence of an imagined superior would be unknown."
The mastery which this doctrine, whether right or wrong, has acquired over the
public mind, has produced as its natural fruit, the extension of the right of
suffrage to all the adult male population in nearly all the states of the Union;
a result which was well epitomized by President Lincoln, in the expression, "government
by the people for the people."
This extension of the suffrage is regarded by many as a source of danger to the
stability of free government. I believe it furnishes the greatest security for
free government, as it deprives the mass of the people of all motive for revolution;
and that government so based is most safe, not because the whole people are less
liable to make mistakes in government so select few, but because they have no
interest which can lead them to such mistakes, or to prevent their correction
when made. On the contrary, the world has never seen an aristocracy, whether
composed of few or many, powerful enough to control a government, who did not
honestly believe that their interest was identical with the public interest,
and who did not act persistently in accordance with such belief; and, unfortunately,
an aristocracy of sex has not proved an exception to the rule. The only method
yet discovered of overcoming this tendency to the selfish use of power, whether
consciously or unconsciously, by those possessing it, is the distribution of
the power among all who are its subjects. Short of this the name free government
is a misnomer...
The principle which governs in these cases, or which has done so hitherto, has
been at all times and everywhere the same. Those who succeed in obtaining power,
no matter by what means, will, with rare exceptions, use it for their exclusive
benefit. Often, perhaps generally, this is done in the honest belief that such
use is for the best good of all who are affected by it. A wrong, however, to
those upon whom it is inflicted, is none the less a wrong by reason of the good
motives of the party by whom it is inflicted.
The condition of subjection in which women have been held is the result of this
principle; the result of superior strength, not of superior right, on the part
of men. Superior strength, combined with ignorance and selfishness, but not with
malice. It is a relic of the barbarism in the shadow of which nations have grown
up. Precisely as nations have receded from barbarism the severity of that subjection
has been relaxed. So long as merely physical power governed in the affairs of
the world, the wrongs done to women were without the possibility of redress or
relief; but since nations have come to be governed by laws, there is room to
hope, though the process may still be a slow one, that injustice in all its forms,
or at least political injustice, may be extinguished. No injustice can be greater
than to deny to any class of citizens not guilty of crime, all share in the political
power of a state, that is, all share in the choice of rulers, and in the making
and administration of the laws. Persons to which such share is denied, are essentially
slaves, because they hold their rights, if they can be said to have any, subject
to the will of those who hold the political power. For this reason it has been
found necessary to give the ballot to the emancipated slaves. Until this was
one their emancipation was far from complete. Without a share in the political
powers of the state, no class of citizens has any security for its rights, and
thee history of nations to which I briefly alluded, shows that women constitute
no exception to the university of this rule.