Donald Trump has announced that he will forgive Susan B Anthony, who was arrested in 1872 for voting, in violation of laws that only allow men to do so.
The Act of Executive Clemency was announced at a ceremony in the White House on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which extended the right to vote to women.
Anthony was fined $ 100 for her illegal activities, half a century before the franchise expanded.
“Sign a full and complete apology to Susan B Anthony,” Said Trump. “She was never forgiven.”
Trump had on Monday announced his intention to forgive someone “very, very important” in a conversation with reporters.
In the past, Trump has exercised the power of executive clerks in favor of friends, such as political strategist Roger Stone and former police commissioner Bernie Kerik, as Republican favorites, such as commentator Dinesh D’Souza and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former aides of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Trump has also extended grace to historic figures such as Jack Johnson, the boxing champion convicted in 1913 of traveling with a white girlfriend.
Anthony’s selection for a posthumous apology could be intended to address Trump’s gaping popularity gap among women voters. Female voters express a preference for Biden with a margin of 56% -42%.
One of the most famous suffragists in history, Anthony became the first woman to appear on the US coin when dollars were coined in 1979 with her equal. During the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton supporters took “I voted” stickers from polling stations and stekke se to Anthony’s tombstone.
Trump’s pardon caused a backlash from critics who said defending a corrupt law was Anthony’s point and that the president had no case to forgive her.
“As the highest-ranking woman elected official in New York and on behalf of the legacy of Susan B Anthony, we demand Trump’s pardon be repealed,” tweeted Kathy Hochul, the state’s lieutenant governor.
‘She was proud of her arrest for raising awareness of women’s rights, and never paid her a fine. Let them rest in peace. ”
Anthony spent most of her life in New York State.
She is also considered a hero by some evangelical campaigners for anti-abortion, an attitude that many pro-choice campaigners doubt. Members of the Susan B Anthony List, an anti-abortion group, were at the White House on Tuesday.
Although Anthony has never spoken publicly for or against abortion, some have attributed it to her anti-abortion writing by a writer who went by the letter ‘A’. Experts question Anthony’s connection to writing.
In an interview with the Guardian in 2018, David Blight, a Pulitzer-winning biographer of Frederick Douglass in the meantime, took up the “brutal racism” that Anthony and other campaigners displayed when black men won the vote in 1870.
Trump’s focus on a key advocate in expanding voting rights comes as he seeks to undermine the franchise by attacking post-voting and encouraging Republican lawmakers to make it harder for people to vote.
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