Immediately after registering Miss Anthony had gone to a number of the leading lawyers in Rochester for advice as to her right to vote on the following Tuesday, but none of them would consider her case.  Finally she entered the office of Henry R. Selden, a leading member of the bar and formerly judge of the court of appeals.  He listened to her attentively, took the mass of documents which she had brought with her—­Benjamin F. Butler’s minority report, Francis Minor’s resolutions, Judge Riddle’s speech made in Washington in a similar case the year previous, various Supreme Court decisions, an incontrovertible array of argument—­and told her he would give her an answer on Monday.  She called then and he said:  “My brother Samuel and I have spent an entire day in examining these papers and we believe that your claim to a right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment is valid.  I will protect you in that right to the best of my ability.”

Armed with this authority she cast her vote the next day, and advised the other women to do the same.  As the inspectors hesitated to receive the votes, Miss Anthony assured them that should they be prosecuted she herself would bear all the expenses of the suit.  They had been advised not to register the women by Silas J. Wagner, Republican supervisor.  All three of the inspectors and also a bystander declared under oath that Daniel J. Warner, the Democratic supervisor, had advised them to register the names of the women; but on election day this same man attempted to challenge their votes.  This, however, already had been done by one Sylvester Lewis, who testified later that he acted for the Democratic central committee.  The general belief that these ladies voted the Republican ticket may have influenced this action.

About two weeks after election, Monday, November 18, Miss Anthony received a call from Deputy United States Marshal E.J.  Keeney who, amid many blushes and much hesitation and stammering, announced that it was his unpleasant duty to arrest her.  “Is this your usual method of serving a warrant?” she calmly inquired.  The marshal, thus encouraged, produced the necessary legal document.[67] As she wished to make some change in her dress, he told her she could come down alone to the commissioner’s office, but she refused to take herself to court, so he waited until she was ready and then declined her suggestion that he put handcuffs on her.  She had intended to have suit brought against those inspectors who refused to register the women, but it never had occurred to her that those who voted would themselves be arrested.

Under date of November 27, Judge Selden wrote her:  “I suppose the commissioner will, as a matter of course, hold you for trial at the circuit court, whatever your rights may be in the matter. In my opinion, the idea that you can be charged with a crime on account of voting, or offering to vote, when you honestly believed yourself entitled to vote, is simply preposterous, whether your belief were right or wrong.  However, the learned gentlemen engaged in this movement seem to suppose they can make a crime out of your honest deposit of your ballot, and perhaps they can find a respectable court or jury that will be of their opinion.  If they do so I shall be greatly disappointed.”