sult her
attorneys and then to the newspaper offices to talk with the editors in
regard to the prisoners, reaching home at dark, and in her diary that
night she writes, "I could not bear to come away and leave them one
night in that dolorous place."

She went out for a few lectures in neighboring towns, and at the
Dansville Sanitarium was presented by the patients with a purse of $62.
Arriving in Rochester at 7 A. M., March 2, she went straight to the
jail and breakfasted with the inspectors; then to see the marshal and
succeeded in having them released on bail. She did not reach home till
1 p. M., and here she found this telegram from Senator Sargent: "I laid
the case of the inspectors before the President today. He kindly orders
their pardon. Papers are being prepared." Benjamin F. Butler also had
interceded with the President and sent Miss Anthony a telegram of
congratulation on the result. In a few days the inspectors were
pardoned and their fines remitted by President Grant. They were in jail
just one week and during that time received hundreds of calls, while
each day bountiful meals were sent them by the women whose votes they
had accepted. After their pardon a reception was given them at the home
of Miss Anthony's sister, Mrs. Mosher, by the ladies of the Eighth
ward, and in the spring they were re-elected by a handsome majority.
Miss Anthony's fine stands against her to the present day.

This case was the dominating feature of the National Convention at
Washington in the winter of 1874; the key-note of all the speeches and
the arguments before the judiciary committees was woman's right to vote
under the Fourteenth Amendment. The women did not relinquish this claim
until all ground for it was destroyed by a decision of the United
States Supreme Court in 1875, in the case of Virginia L. Minor, of St.
Louis. Francis Minor, a lawyer of that city, was the first to assert
that women were enfranchised by both the letter and the spirit of the
Fourteenth Amendment, and, acting under his advice, his wife attempted
to register for the presidential election of 1872. Her name was refused
and she brought suit against the inspector for the purpose of making a
test case. After an adverse decision by the lower courts, the case was
carried to the Supreme Court of the United States and argued before
that tribunal by Mr. Minor, at the October term, 1874. It is not too
much to say that no constitutional lawyer in the country could