Susan B Anthony Women's Right To Vote Analysis

Over the past several decades, women of the United States have debated and struggled for many freedoms guaranteed to them by the Founding Fathers. One of these women, Susan B. Anthony, traveled across the country giving passionate speeches and writing books of conviction about women’s suffrage. Even though women would not always win cases brought to court, they still retained their views and continued their movement to gain their rightful freedoms. Susan B. Anthony in her speech, “On Women’s Right to Vote,” which was written in 1873, showed that Anthony believed that suffrage was a vital liberty of citizens of the United States and she demonstrated this notion thorough several pieces of evidence.

Throughout the history of the United States, the argument to define what it means to be a citizen has existed throughout various eras. Initially, the Constitution did not identify women, Native Americans, or

minority groups as people of equal status to white males. Susan B. Anthony argued against this belief when she referenced the “supreme law of the land” and its protections for all citizens. She rationalized that in order for the “general welfare” of all people of the nation to be protected, as promised in the Preamble, women needed to be recognized as persons deserving of the right to vote and participate in civic affairs. Anthony is clearly correct in her interpretation of the Constitution, and the fact that it indeed recognized women as equal to men, worthy of suffrage and representation in the body of government that made the laws which they were to follow.
Suffrage defined a person as a citizen and allows the person to express their opinions and views politically.

Women believed that to be a true United States citizen, they needed the ability to vote, but there hands were tied just because of their gender. Anthony announced that men and women formed the government together. Why did only men have the right to vote and have their opinions voiced, while the women could not? She demonstrated this concept when she claimed that there were “fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, wife, and daughters of every household.” She stated this was against the capability to “secure blessings of Liberty” and through this, it violated the Constitution. Not only did white women suffer from this, but so did African American women like Sojourner Truth, who believed that men didn’t treat her or any African American woman well. Men had control and could dictate what was going on in the household. Women wanted equality, they wanted their promised freedoms, and they wanted their right to

vote.
American woman throughout history, have made great contributions to the formation of the United States. Yet, white and black woman in that period did not have suffrage, were not paid equally, and were not as respected as the men. Anthony proclaimed that women formed the Daughters of Liberty organization, which participated in boycotts and buying American-made products. They helped win the war just as the males did. In 1870, African American males were permitted to vote because of the Fifteenth Amendment, while African American woman could not. Susan B. Anthony referenced the women’s role in the American Revolution by declaring that men were not the only American people who formed the United States, the woman did as well. Discrimination was also seen with African American women too. This showed the frustration and injustice shown to women of both nationalities and race because while white and black men could vote, the women could not.
Susan B. Anthony was not highlighting revolutionary thoughts. The struggle for women’s suffrage had begun forty years earlier in the beginning of the 1800s. However, her speech does represent a more active desire to achieve this equal status after the passage of the 15th Amendment. Her words represent willingness to go to prison for the right to vote. Her words represent a desire for not only political equality but overall change in the way women were perceived by men, both at home and eventually in the workplace. American woman wanted their earned freedoms, liberties, and suffrage nothing less, nothing more.