urs for her
country in its crisis. After the war, attention began to be concentrated
more on the right to _vote_. By the Fourteenth Amendment the franchise
was at once given to negroes; but the insertion of the word _male_
effectually barred any national recognition of woman's right to vote. A
vigorous effort was made by the suffrage leaders to have _male_
stricken from the amendment; but the effort was futile. Legislators
thought that the black man's vote ought to be secured first; as the _New
York Tribune_ (Dec. 12, 1866) puts it snugly: "We want to see the ballot
put in the hands of the black without one day's delay added to the long
postponement of his just claim. When that is done, we shall be ready to
take up the next question" (i.e., woman's rights).

The first Women's Rights Convention after the Civil War had been held in
New York City, May 10, 1866, and had presented an address to Congress.
Such was the dauntless courage of the leaders, that Mrs. Stanton offered
herself as a candidate for Congress at the November elections, in order
to test the constitutional rights of a woman to run for office. She
received twenty-four votes.

Six years later, on November I, 1872, Miss Susan B. Anthony did a far
more Audacious thing. She went to the polls and asked to be registered.
The two Republican members of the board were won over by her exposition
of the Fourteenth Amendment and agreed to receive her name, against the
advice of their Democratic colleague and a United States supervisor.
Following Miss Anthony's example, some fifty other women of Rochester
registered. Fourteen voted and were at once arrested under the
enforcement act of Congress of May 31, 1870 (_section_ 19). The case of
Miss Anthony was argued, ably by her attorney; but she was adjudged
guilty. A _nolle prosequi_ was entered for the women who voted with her.

Immediately after the decision in her case, the inspectors who had
registered the women were put on trial because they "did knowingly and
willfully register as a voter of said District one Susan B. Anthony,
she, said Susan B. Anthony, then and there not being entitled to be
registered as a voter of said District in that she, said Susan B.
Anthony, was then and there a person of the female sex, contrary to the
form of the statute of the United States of America in such case made
and provided, and against the peace of the United States of America and
their dignity." The defendants were ordered to pa