Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. – Luke 13:3
On this day in 1873, Supreme Court Justice Ward Hunt ruled that Susan B. Anthony will be fined $100 for attempting to vote in the presidential election of 1872. During the two-day trial, Justice Hunt directed the jury to vote for a guilty verdict and did not allow Anthony to speak until after the verdict was passed down, a common law practice of the time. When Anthony was finally allowed to speak, she gave the most famous women’s suffrage speech in American history, and said, “I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.” She kept her promise even after her passing and, when President Donald Trump offered to posthumously pardon Anthony in 2020, the president of the National Susan B. Anthony Museum wrote to decline the offer, upholding Anthony’s promise to neither validate nor comply with an unjust penalty.
As the Lord leads, pray with us…
- For Attorney General Merrick Garland as he oversees the enforcement of federal laws by the Justice Department.
- For Director Christopher Wray as he heads the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
