On the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, President Trump pardoned Susan B. Anthony posthumously.
The presidential pardon took place in the White House on Tuesday. The President and First Lady, Melania hosted the “Votes for Women” group, who lobbied for the pardon.
In November 1872, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for illegally voting in the Presidential election. Only men were allowed to vote at that time.
Anthony and her three sisters all voted. She was arrested at her home in Rochester, New York, and put on trial in Canandaigua, New York.
The all-male jury was instructed to find Anthony guilty — they didn’t even bother with deliberations. The court imposed a fine of $100.
According to historian Steven Portnoy, Anthony, who died 14 years after the 19th amendment was ratified, described her conviction as “the greatest judicial outrage that history has ever recorded.”
Anthony refused to pay the fine and all court costs. She was not jailed. The judge did not send her to prison, so she had no right to appeal. The suffragette was hoping to appeal to take women’s voting rights to the Supreme Court.
