Did Susan B. Anthony Want to Be Pardoned?

On August 18, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment and women’s suffrage, President Trump announced with great fanfare that he would be pardoning feminist activist Susan B. Anthony, who was convicted in 1873 of voting illegally. Humorist Andy Borowitz joked that Anthony pleaded that Trump not pardon her, given the company of other “pardonees” that she would join.

In fact, though, no one could or did consult Anthony about whether she wanted a pardon.  After all, she passed away in 1906.

I can’t help but think that New York Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul is right, though, when she says that Susan B. Anthony doesn’t need and wouldn’t want the President’s pardon.  

Anthony sought to vote in the 1872 presidential election in order to make a point about women’s suffrage, knowing that what she was attempting was against a law that she knew was unjust.  The fact that she was prosecuted simply further proved her point, and served as a rallying cry for those seeking to expand the vote. As Hochul noted in her statement, Anthony remained in defiance of the discriminatory voting law and refused to pay the fine that was levied against her.

Pardoning her is not a vindication.  Instead, the act has the potential to erase her civil disobedience and the government’s complicity in enforcing a blatantly discriminatory law. Susan B. Anthony is a complicated figure, more than prepared to leave black women behind in her push for women’s suffrage.

There are many things, good and bad, that we should be remembering about Susan B. Anthony and the push for suffrage as we celebrate the 19th amendment.  Rewriting that history of struggle through this belated pardon is an act that Anthony would almost certainly reject.