Argumentative Essay On Women's Suffrage

Lauren Liveringhouse

Block 3

Women’s Suffrage Paper

Introduction/Thesis

“The day may be approaching when the whole world will recognize woman as the equal of man.” (Susan B. Anthony Quotes). The day will finally come for women, but it did not happen overnight, it happened over time. Women’s suffrage is the right for women to vote in elections. Women’s rights were not officially granted to them until the year of 1920. This date was when the congress passed the 19th amendment which gave the women the right to vote. In order to accomplish this, woman needed a leader. A great leader would be someone who listens to the people, a person who's not afraid to try, and an activist who does not stop until they get what they want. Susan B. Anthony fits

Anthony had an enormous impact on the women’s rights movement because she helped create the 19th Amendment. In 1850, Stanton met Susan B. Anthony and they pronounced an alliance on working together to be women’s rights activists. Stanton and Anthony created the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869. This association opposes the 15th amendment because it excludes women and this association puts its efforts toward trying to change the federal law. Susan B Anthony’s impact on this association is that she was the leader. As a leader, she toured in the West to get the word out about women’s suffrage. By going around and informing the public about women’s suffrage, she “gathered petitions from 26 states with 100,000 signatures, but Congress laughed at them” (Susan B. Anthony House). The biggest risk Anthony took was voting in the Presidential Election illegally in 1872. She was arrested and charged a fine of $100 for denying the charges she had to pay for breaking the rule. But being denied never stopped her, she tried harder and harder every time she got rejected by the congress. Lucy Stone created the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). In 1887, the AWSA and the NWSA by Stanton and Anthony was combined to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Stanton was president at the beginning of the organization but after she retired Anthony took over. This organization was the biggest push towards the 19th Amendment. Since Anthony was

Anthony was impactful was because she paved the way for women and political rights after illegally voting in a 1872 presidential election which led her to a trial. Her trial was symbol for fighting. It all started when Anthony created a plan with the NWSA to vote in the November, 1872 presidential election. Anthony, and fourteen other women, registered to vote and then voted without “the legal right to vote in said election district—she, in the words of the indictment, being then and there a person of the female sex” (History of the Federal Judiciary). A poll watcher questioned Anthony's qualifications as a voter, but her answers passed and the inspectors placed her ballot in the voting box. It wasn’t part of Anthony’s plan for her vote to follow through. But days later U.S. Commissioner William Storrs, an officer of the federal courts, questioned Anthony and the fourteen other women who voted in Rochester. They were charged with “voting for members of the U.S. House of Representatives “without having a lawful right to vote,” in violation of section 19 of the Enforcement Act of 1870” (History of the Federal Judiciary). On November 18th, 1872, Anthony was appointed by a federal marshal to go see the commissioner’s office in a streetcar. When she arrived her attorneys examined her, her trial was moved to a city council for a bigger audience and ended with Anthony must give bail to appear and answer to indictments, if bills be found by the Grand