The only alleged ground of illegality of the defendant’s vote is that she is a woman. If the same act had been done by her brother under the same circumstances, the act would have been not only innocent, but honorable and laudable; but having been done by a woman it is said to be a crime. The crime therefore consists not in the act done, but in the simple fact that the person doing it was a woman and not a man. I believe this is the first instance in which a woman has been arraigned in a criminal court merely on account of her sex.

Women have the same interest that men have in the establishment and maintenance of good government; they are to the same extent as men bound to obey the laws; they suffer to the same extent by bad laws, and profit to the same extent by good laws; and upon principles of equal justice, they should be allowed equally with men to express their preference in the choice of law-makers and rulers. No greater absurdity could be presented than that of rewarding men and punishing women, for the same act, without giving to women any voice in the question which act should be rewarded, and which punished. . . .

What, then, are the “privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States” that are secured against such abridgement by [the Fourteenth Amendment]? I claim that these terms not only include the right of voting for public officers, but that they include that right as the most important of all the privileges and immunities to which the section refers. The possession of this voice, in the making and administration of the laws – this political right – is what gives security and value to the other rights, which are merely personal, not political. A person deprived of political rights is essentially a slave, because he holds his personal rights subject to the will of those who possess the political power.

By virtue of [the Fourteenth Amendment], I insist that the act of Miss Anthony in voting was lawful. . . .

Under the Constitution of the State of New York, the defendant clearly had no right to vote. Nothing in the Constitution of the United States, except the Fifteenth Amendment, takes from the respective States the right to prescribe the qualifications of its voters.

The Fifteenth Amendment takes from the states the right to prescribe qualifications in regard to voting only “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” – leaving them untrammeled as to sex, and other qualifications.

It must be held that the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment did not in any respect take from the States the power to regulate the qualifications of voters, so far as sex is concerned.