Aug. 18 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will posthumously pardon suffrage icon Susan B. Anthony for her arrests nearly 150 years ago for unlawfully voting.
Trump made the comments during a White House ceremony recognizing the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted American women the right to vote.
“I can’t believe this hasn’t happened before,” Trump said of pardoning Anthony, who violated laws that permitted only men to vote. “She got pardons for a lot of other women and she didn’t put her name on the list. We are going to be signing a full and complete pardon.”
Anthony, who fought for women’s right to vote over five decades, illegally voted in the 1872 presidential election by casting a ballot in Rochester, N.Y. She was subsequently arrested, convicted and fined $100, the equivalent of about $2,200 today. She died in 1906 at the age of 86.
Trump called the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution “a monumental victory for equality and justice” in the United States.
“Today, a record-breaking 131 women are serving in Congress,” he said. “Nearly 70 million women vote in elections, 56% of our nation’s of our nation’s college students are women, more than 11 million women own successful businesses.
“In other words, women dominate the United States.”
