Susan B. Anthony's Stump Speech On Voting Rights

Susan B. Anthony was a suffragist and a pioneer for women’s rights. She was a founder of Daughters of Temperance, Women’s Loyal League and The National Women’s Suffrage Association. Anthony delivers a Stump Speech on voting rights in all 29 postal districts of Monroe County, New York in 1872, after being convicted of voting illegally in the 1872 presidential election. During her speech, she focuses on the equal voting rights for women at the ballot just as men have. The purpose of the speech was to gain more suffragist to her cause, in hopes of getting a law passed for women’s right to vote legally within the United States. Anthony was able to connect her message of women’s suffrage with her audience of Victorian men and women by quoting from …show more content…
She stated “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(para 1).” Each individual in a democratic-republic is granted a voice as well as a vote in making or removing laws. People had the right to protect what was theirs before governments were formed. The Declaration of Independence and every constitution formed all imply to protect people during the acts of preforming their God-given rights. The first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence expresses that every individual is created equal and is given rights that cannot be taken away. She argues the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence to point out natural rights everyone has to vote. If women are not granted their rights to vote how can the “consent to be governed” be given without representation. Many women are unsatisfied living in a country where their right to vote is denied, but they can be taxed without representation. Unaccompanied by the right to vote women are forced to obey laws they never gave approval