Immediately after the decision in her case, the inspectors who had registered the women were put on trial because they “did knowingly and willfully register as a voter of said District one Susan B. Anthony, she, said Susan B. Anthony, then and there not being entitled to be registered as a voter of said District in that she, said Susan B. Anthony, was then and there a person of the female sex, contrary to the form of the statute of the United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the United States of America and their dignity.”  The defendants were ordered to pay each a fine of twenty-five dollars and the costs of the prosecution; but the sentence was revoked and an unconditional pardon given them by President Grant, in an order dated March 3, 1874.  Miss Anthony was forced to pay her fine, in spite of an appeal to Congress.

Such were the stirring times when the agitation for women’s rights was first brought to the fore as a national issue.  Within a few years, various States, like New York and Kansas, put the question of equal suffrage for women before its voters; they in general rejected the measure.  At present there are four States which give women complete suffrage and right to vote on all questions with the same privileges as men, viz., Wyoming (1869), Colorado (1893), Utah (1896), and Idaho (1896).  In 1838 Kentucky gave school suffrage to widows with children of school age; in 1861 Kansas gave it to all women.  School suffrage was granted all women in 1875 by Michigan and Minnesota, in 1876 by Colorado, in 1878 by New Hampshire and Oregon, in 1879 by Massachusetts, in 1880 by New York and Vermont, in 1883 by Nebraska, in 1887 by North and South Dakota, Montana, Arizona, and New Jersey.  Kansas gave municipal suffrage in 1887; and Montana gave tax-paying women the right to vote upon all questions submitted to the tax-payers.  In 1891 Illinois granted school suffrage, as did Connecticut in 1893.  Iowa gave bond suffrage in 1894.  In 1898 Minnesota gave women the right to vote for library trustees, Delaware gave school suffrage to tax-paying women, and Louisiana gave tax-paying women the right to vote upon all questions submitted to the tax-payers.  Wisconsin gave school suffrage in 1900.  In 1901 New York gave tax-paying women in all towns and villages of the State the right to vote on questions of local taxation; and the Kansas Legislature voted down almost unanimously a proposal to repeal municipal suffrage.  In 1903 Kansas gave bond suffrage; and in 1907 the new State of Oklahoma continued school suffrage.  In 1908 Michigan gave all women who pay taxes the right to vote upon questions of local taxation and the granting of franchises.

The history of the “age of legal consent” has an importance which through prudery and a wilful ignorance of facts the public has never fully realised.  I shall have considerable to say of it later.  It will suffice for the moment to remark that until the decade preceding 1898 the old Common Law period of ten, sometimes twelve, years was the basis of “age of consent” legislation in most States and in the Territories under the jurisdiction of the national government.  In 1885 the age in Delaware was seven.