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Cierra Truett
July 17th, 2019
ENG-111-502

Comparative Essay: Anthony vs King

In November 1872, Susan B. Anthony gave a speech after she was arrested for voting

during the presidential election. Due to her being a woman, it was illegal for Anthony to vote at

the time. During this time, it was strictly a man's job to vote and women had no government

power because it was not their place. Women were to clean the house and take care of the

children while the men went to work and made the money. Throughout her speech, Anthony

quotes several important documents. The first document that she quoted was the Declaration of

Independence, which says “All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator their certain

inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these

governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the

governed.” She uses these documents to support the statement that women should have the right

to vote. Later in her speech, she talks about how each one of us have God-given rights and if

they are God-given, no one should be able to take these away. Another point that was mentioned

during her speech is when she quotes the preamble. The preamble states “We the People of the

United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic

Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the

Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for

the United States of America.” In this section of the Constitution, it says “we the people”. It

doesn’t say “we the white men” or “we the black females”. It simply says, “we the people”.

Since no one is excluded from this statement, this means women have a part in it also. If women

are going to be included in the preamble of the Constitution, then why are they not allowed the
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right to vote? Once again, Anthony is doing no wrong because it seems as though the

government had things out of order if women are going to be included in a government

document but they simply do not have the option to make a check on a slip of paper.

After reading her speech, I agree with Anthony. If you are going to make the thirteenth

amendment allowing slaves to become free men, why are you not going to allow women the

right to vote? Personally, I feel horrible for the women who had to live during this time period.

Women weren’t even a person; they were more of an “object”. The women where there to clean

the house a take care of the children. I wouldn’t really classify them as a “citizen” because they

didn’t have any rights. Women didn’t even have the right to vote, more less the ability to do

things such as buy property. I feel bad for Anthony because she didn’t necessarily do anything

illegal, she just wanted the simple right to vote for the future leader of her country. Even though I

understand how horrid life was for women in the 1870’s, I am also very thankful for Susan B.

Anthony. When she went up to the voting table to vote, she was merely trying to choose who she

thought should lead the country that she lives in. Instead of placing her vote in the ballot box, she

was instead arrested and deprived of her natural rights as a citizen of the United States of

America. She knew this could happen since women were not allowed to vote at the time, but she

still made the bold choice that she did to attempt to place her vote. Even though she was arrested

as a result of her actions, a lot of good came out of the situation. As a result of her actions,

women are now legally allowed to vote, along with an array of many other things.

In Martin Luther King Junior’s “I Have A Dream” speech, he talks about how African-

Americans are segregated and mistreated simply for the color of their skin. In his speech, he

makes the point “Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to

the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to change racial injustice to the solid rock of

brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice ring out for all of God's children. There will be
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neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted citizenship rights.” I like

what he is saying here. King strikes me as a strong-willed man who will not give up until he

gets what he wants. He seems very determined to make a change in America and get the

justice for African-Americans that they deserve. I think this is a major part of why he is so

well remembered. He was simply a man of his word and if something needed to be said, he

made sure it was said. If something needed to be done, he made sure it was done.

Like Anthony’s situation, it is once again a speech about an ignorant restriction/law.

Why should a fellow African-American must drink from a separate water fountain than me

because his skin is darker than mine? Why should a man’s spouse have to stay at home and

clean because of something she had no control over? Another way that both of the

situations are similar is that they are both a case of some type of supremacy. In Anthony’s

situation, it is simply male supremacy. In King’s situation, it is white supremacy. One group

of people is choosing to be ignorant to another group of people for something so minor. If

people would have just stopped, listened and thought about equality, neither of these

things would have been a problem. Even though the government documents mentioned say

that their goal is to “establish a perfect union”, it’s going to be very difficult and even

impossible to do so. Perfect has so many definitions because we could say today that our

nation is “perfect”, but it definitely was not merely close to that 150 years ago and we are

still so far from it but we have to look at how much we have improved as a nation in the

past century. Now, many of my best friends that go to school with me are African-American

and I have the ability to be a part of multiple clubs within my school. If women still did not

have any rights today, I wouldn’t even have the ability to type this paper. Thank God for
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public speakers. Whether it is over something small or something gigantic, it will make a

difference in the end.