of arbitrary and unconstitutional authority and a blow at the
liberties of every citizen of this nation." Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Stanton,
Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, Rev. Olympia Brown and others made
ringing speeches on the right of women to vote under the Fourteenth
Amendment, defended the course of Miss Anthony and denounced her
arrest. This was the tenor of all the addresses. She was unanimously
elected president for the ensuing year, notwithstanding prison walls
loomed up before her; and then she hastened back to prepare for her
legal battle.

Miss Anthony met her counsel at Albany, and on January 21 Judge Selden
made a masterly argument before U.S. District-Judge N.K. Hall, in
support of her demand for a writ of habeas corpus, and asked the
discharge of the prisoner on the grounds: 1st, That in the act
complained of she discharged a duty or, at all events, exercised a
right, instead of committing a crime; that she had a constitutional and
lawful right to offer her ballot and to have it received and counted;
that she, as well as her brothers, was entitled to express her choice
as to the persons who should make, and those who should execute the
laws, inasmuch as she, as well as they, would be bound to observe them.
2d, That, if she had not that right, she in good faith believed that
she had it and, therefore, her act lacked the indispensable ingredient
of all crime, a corrupt intention.

The judge denied the writ and increased her bail to $1,000. From the
first Miss Anthony had been determined not to recognize the right of
the courts to interfere with her exercise of the franchise, and again
she refused to give bail, insisting that rather than do this she
preferred to go to jail. Judge Selden, however, in kindness of heart,
said there were times when a client must be guided by advice of her
counsel, and himself went on her bond. As she came out of the courtroom
she met her other lawyer, Mr. Van Voorhis, and told him what had been
done. He exclaimed, "You have lost your chance to get your case before
the Supreme Court by writ of habeas corpus!" In her ignorance of legal
forms she had not understood this, and at once she rushed back and
tried to have the bond cancelled, but, to her bitter disappointment,
this was impossible. When she demanded of Judge Selden, "Did you not
know that you had estopped me from carrying my case to the Supreme
Court?" he replied with his old-time courtesy, "Yes, but I could not
see a lad