y, hearken to your verdict as the Court
has recorded it. You say you find the defendant guilty of the offense
whereof she stands indicted, and so say you all?

JUDGE SELDEN: I don't know whether an exception is available, but I
certainly must except to the refusal of the Court to submit those
propositions, and especially to the direction of the Court that the jury
should find a verdict of guilty. I claim that it is a power that is not
given to any Court in a criminal case.

Will the Clerk poll the jury?

THE COURT: No. Gentlemen of the jury, you are discharged.

On the next day a motion for a new trial was made by Judge Selden, as
follows:

_May it please the Court_:

The trial of this case commenced with a question of very great
magnitude--whether by the constitution of the United States the right of
suffrage was secured to female equally with male citizens. It is likely
to close with a question of much greater magnitude--whether the right of
trial by jury is absolutely secured by the federal constitution to
persons charged with crime before the federal courts.

I assume, without attempting to produce any authority on the subject,
that this Court has power to grant to the defendant a new trial in case
it should appear that in the haste and in the lack of opportunity for
examination which necessarily attend a jury trial, any material error
should have been committed prejudicial to the defendant, as otherwise no
means whatever are provided by the law for the correction of such
errors.

The defendant was indicted, under the nineteenth section of the act of
Congress of May 31st, 1870, entitled, "An act to enforce the right of
citizens of the United States to vote in the several states of this
Union, and for other purposes," and was charged with having knowingly
voted, without having a lawful right to vote, at the congressional
election in the eighth ward of the City of Rochester, in November last;
the only ground of illegality being that the defendant was a woman.

The provisions of the act of Congress, so far as they bear upon the
present case, are as follows:

"Section 19. If at any election for representative or delegate in the
Congress of the United States, any person shall knowingly personate and
vote, or attempt to vote, in the name of any other person, whether
living, dead or fictitious, or vote more than once at the same election
for any candidate for the same office, or vote at a place where he may
no