Historians say that a pardon validates their alleged crime, against their wishes.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday faced increasing pressure to rescind his posthumous pardon from Susan B. Anthony, a leader in the women’s rights movement, as a number of Democrats and historians claimed that a presidential apology undermined Anthony’s wishes.
Anthony did not believe she was committing a crime by simply voting.
“This was raised a week ago, and I was so surprised it never happened before,” Trump said of an apology to Anthony Tuesday at a White House event commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. “What took so long?”
Anthony was accused of voting illegally – as a woman – in the 1872 presidential election in her hometown of Rochester, New York. She was eventually tried by a highly male jury – which sentenced the judge to find her guilty – and fined $ 100, which she refused to pay.
“It’s going to be my job tonight to prove to you that I’m not just committing a crime by voting, but instead simply exercising my citizen’s right, guaranteed to me and all the citizens of the United States by the national constitution, beyond the power of any state to refuse, ”Anthony asserted in a speech at the time.
While Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and others have called for criticism to cancel Trump’s pardon, some experts claim it is necessary to protect their legacy.
Deborah Hughes, president and CEO of the National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House in Rochester – whose organization did not receive an advance from the pardon – told ABC News on Wednesday that Anthony was reasonably familiar with the pardon process and “absolutely would not have it for himself. wold. ”
“Anthony was very clear. She felt she had a right to vote as a citizen. She felt the process was the biggest miscarriage of justice, as her lawyers did, and to forgive it is to validate the lawsuit,” he said. Hughes.
Historian Ann Gordon, a former Rutgers University professor and editor of “The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony,” expressed her disapproval of the pardon on Twitter and asked the question what action Trump is taking next on Women’s Equality Day on Aug. 26.
Electoral officials are appealing to Trump to repeal the pardon because, as Gordon claims, it ignores Anthony’s wishes.
At a press conference outside the Susan B. Anthony Museum and Home Tuesday, New York State Lt. Kathy Hochul stressed that notion, saying Anthony was “guilty of nothing.”
“I was deeply concerned to learn that Trump went ahead and treated her like a criminal,” Hochul said. “She was proud of her arrest for drawing attention to the issue of women’s rights, and never paid her a fine. Let her rest in peace.”
After Hochul, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren had agreed that Anthony did not want forgiveness and called on Trump to rescind his action.
Even Trump appeared later Tuesday to acknowledge that Anthony may not have wanted forgiveness, noting that she confirmed pardons for election inspectors who helped her, but not herself.
“I actually asked the other day and she was talking about Susan B. Anthony, and she did that for other people and she did not want to record herself. She was not included in the pardon many years ago,” Trump said in Arizona. . “It’s been very, very popular.”
At least one House Democrat called on Trump for the symbolic gesture that appeared to be directed, at least in part, at female voters seeking him to go to court before the election – because polls show that the demographic currently prefers earlier visions President Joe Biden.
“Pathetic,” wrote rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., Tuesday on Twitter. “Trump forgives a woman who has been dead for more than 100 years to show his commitment to women. Suburbs are not dumb. We are all offended.”
Honor Anthony
Although Hughes agreed that Trump should consider resigning, he said a better way to honor Anthony is by fighting voter oppression and passing the Voting Rights Act.
“We would be much more interested in using this moment – than the President using this moment – to talk about voting rights and the way people are still being denied access to the ballot,” Hughes said. “Rather than asking our energy to ask the president to reverse his action, what if we instead paid attention to voter oppression in the United States? That would probably be a better way to honor Anthony’s legacy.”
She said it was “irony over irony” that Anthony’s pardon comes amid Trump’s unabashed claims, without proof, of widespread fraud as there is universal post-vote in the November election.
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