Susan B. Anthony's Famous Speech about the Right to Vote

Susan B. Anthony

In 1870, Susan B. Anthony said that women were people, too, just like men, and she accordingly voted in an election. The legal system called this a crime and had her arrested. 

Anthony then gave a speech to argue that the United States Constitution combined with simple logic to require that women had equal voting rights. Cleverly citing conservatives’ favorite arguments against them, she laid out a convincing, value-laden case for women’s right to vote. She used the nation’s deepest traditions to support her point. She insisted that the United States should live up to its noble values. Using the same legalistic strategy that Abraham Lincoln had mastered, she defined her argument in traditional terms.

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To start that process, Anthony quoted the entire preamble to the United States Constitution:

“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.”

Then, Anthony reminded her audience that the Constitution did not give rights only to males, but to people:

“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.” [italics added]

Continuing her constitutional argument, Anthony claimed that preventing women from voting (since women are defined as people!) violated the Constitution on multiple grounds:

“For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity.”

Here, Anthony assumed that her audience was aware that the United States Constitution specifically outlawed the bill of attainder and ex post facto laws.

Pursuing definitions further, Anthony noted that conservatives like to call our system of government a republic, not a democracy. Turning the tables against that position, Anthony argued that those who restricted women’s right to vote wanted neither a democracy nor a republic. Indeed, she denied that those people supported any part of our system of government:

“To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex.”

Then, reducing her opponents’ argument to absurdity, Anthony insisted that to deny the right of vote required her opponents to deny that women are persons. Surely, she noted, not even they would sink that low:

“The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities.”

In this short, brilliant speech, Susan B. Anthony insisted that the United States should live up to the noble values that its founding documents stated but often ignored. Using the same legalistic strategy that Abraham Lincoln had mastered, Anthony defined her argument in traditional terms. Perhaps the most powerful persuasive technique of all is to accept your opponents’ own arguments, and then show that they actually support your side, not theirs.

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As the United States of America celebrates Women’s History Month in March 2026, let us pause to remember, not only women’s many accomplishments, but also the endless struggle for the equality of all women and all persons. As politicians today try to adopt the so-called SAVE Act, which tries to improve voting security but imposes greater paperwork requirements on married women’s voting rights than on men’s, let us remember that the only thing separating us from freedom is a moment of tyranny.

by William D. Harpine

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Research Note:

First, the appeal tradition is not necessarily a fallacy; it depends on the tradition. Some traditions are good and some are bad. Although some things that used to be good have grown obsolete, other old things remain the best. Anthony’s argument was that the people who oppose women’s voting pretended to be traditional when they had, in fact, rejected United States of America’s traditional values. It is a powerful argument.

Second, the debate strategy of reductio ad absurdum uses the simple tactic of taking a seemingly reasonable argument to its logical conclusion. This classic technique can prove that things that only seem to be reasonable are in fact faulty. Anthony applied that strategy to perfection.

For more about fallacies, there is still no better source than the work of philosopher Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, which I often used as a textbook in my debate classes.

To understand the power of arguments from definition, one must study the great conservative rhetorical theorist Richard Weaver, especially his groundbreaking work, The Ethics of Rhetoric.

Copyright © 2026 by William D. Harpine

Image of Susan B. Anthony, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Donald Trump and the Art of Doublespeak

Donald Trump

When Donald Trump gave his Truth Social speech in the wee hours of February 28, 2026, “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear program did not mean that he had obliterated anything. Why did Trump play a word game? He needed to squirm out of the trap that he had created with his own rhetorical history. That is, Trump had earlier boasted that a June 2025 attack had obliterated Iran’s nuclear program. That was false. The raid damaged the program but did not obliterate it. 

The problem is that “obliterate” is an absolute word. So, we could damage something but not obliterate it. There can be degrees of damage, but there is only one level of obliteration. According to the dictionary, to obliterate something means “to remove or destroy all traces of; do away with; destroy completely.” That is quite absolute!

When something has been obliterated, it simply no longer exists. Unfortunately, since Trump had previously claimed to have obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program, he needed to play a word game to justify obliterating it again. Never one to admit error, Trump played a game of doublespeak to justify his February 2026 attack.

Yes, yesterday, February 28, 2026, United States President Donald Trump gave a brief speech – on Truth Social, of all places – announcing an air and missile strike against Iran. After reviewing various Iranian bad actions, most of which dated back decades, Trump’s Truth Social speech emphasized that he wanted to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program, indeed, the same nuclear program that he said he had obliterated in June 2025. He said:

“It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I'll say it again, they can never have a nuclear weapon.”

Continuing, Trump boasted that the United States military had, at his direction, previously “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program:

“That is why in Operation Midnight Hammer last June, we obliterated the regime's nuclear program at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.” [italics added]

Trump then accused Iran of trying to “rebuild their nuclear program.” He promised that Iran’s missile program “will be again totally obliterated.” [italics added]

Again? After only a few months?

Obliterated once, obliterated again: Trump’s speech began to sound like a science fiction story in which the dead space alien comes back to life again, again, and again.

Sadly, however, Trump’s previous statements trapped him. We must remember the history of Trump’s obliterations. That is, back in June 2025, he had posted on the White House website that:

“Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear [sic] sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images. Obliteration is an accurate term! The white structure shown is deeply imbedded [sic] into the rock, with even its roof well below ground level, and completely shielded from flame. The biggest damage took place far below ground level. Bullseye!!!” [italics added]

Obliteration!

At the same time, Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had said:

“Based on everything we have seen — and I’ve seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target and worked perfectly. [italics added]

That, as it happens, turned out to be wrong. United States intelligence services quickly found that the June 2025 attack left Iran's major nuclear equipment undamaged.

It defies credulity to think that we would need to obliterate a program that had already been obliterated, and, indeed, obliterated so recently. Disinclined to admit that Trump could be mistaken, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded, still in June 2025, that the intelligence report was wrong, and that Iran’s nuclear program had, in fact, been obliterated: 

“The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.” [italics added]

Although Leavitt tried to defend Trump’s gross overstatement of the facts about the June 2025 raid, she also unwittingly foreshadowed the rhetorical history that Trump would need to overcome in February 2026.

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That is why Trump’s word game – obliteration then and obliteration now – only worked, to the extent that it worked at all, if Trump used the exact word every time. If he said in June that the program had been obliterated, and then said yesterday that the program had merely been destroyed in June, the entire word game would fall apart. Trump could not say, “We obliterated Iran’s nuclear program in June, and now we have destroyed it.” He could not say, “We obliterated Iran’s nuclear program in June, and now we have smashed it.” Obliteration does not permit degrees. Logic gave Trump no escape, but the word game helped Trump avoid conceding that he had been wrong the first time. 

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In his novel 1984, George Orwell defined doublethink as the political practice of holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time. Writers have evolved the related term “doublespeak” to reflect a similar idea, in which we use one word to mean contradictory things. In Trump’s case, does “obliterate” really mean “obliterate”?

Trump’s linguistic trick is obvious: brazen, maybe. Unfortunately, its powerful persuasive force cannot be denied. Trapped in a history created by his own previous exaggerations, unwilling to retreat, unable to admit error, Trump implicitly asked his audience to revise the entire concept of obliteration. Doublespeak indeed. 

by William D. Harpine

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P.S.: Now, I am just a retired speech teacher, and I’m not qualified to say how much damage these raids did to Iran’s warlike ambitions, nor am I qualified to say whether Trump’s policy is wise or unwise (although I have my doubts!). One must suspect, however, that Trump would not play word games if he and the facts played for the same team.

Copyright © 2026 by William D. Harpine

Image of Donald Trump, public domain, official White House photo