violate it. The necessary effect of her act was to violate it, and this
she is presumed to have intended. There was no ignorance of any fact,
but all the facts being known, she undertook to settle a principle in
her own person. She takes the risk, and she cannot escape the
consequences. It is said, and authorities are cited to sustain the
position, that there can be no crime unless there is a culpable intent;
to render one criminally responsible a vicious will must be present. A
commits a trespass on the land of B, and B, thinking and believing that
he has a right to shoot an intruder on his premises, kills A on the
spot. Does B's misapprehension of his rights justify his act? Would a
Judge be justified in charging the jury that if satisfied that B
supposed he had a right to shoot A he was justified, and they should
find a verdict of not guilty? No Judge would make such a charge. To
constitute a crime, it is true, that there must be a criminal intent,
but it is equally true that knowledge of the facts of the case is always
held to supply this intent. An intentional killing bears with it
evidence of malice in law. Whoever, without justifiable cause,
intentionally kills his neighbor, is guilty of a crime. The principle is
the same in the case before us, and in all criminal cases. The precise
question now before me has been several times decided, viz.: that one
illegally voting was bound and was assumed to know the law, and that a
belief that he had a right to vote gave no defense, if there was no
mistake of fact. (Hamilton against The People, 57th of Barbour, p. 625;
State against Boyet, 10th of Iredell, p. 336; State against Hart, 6th
Jones, 389; McGuire against State, 7 Humphrey, 54; 15th of Iowa reports,
404.) No system of criminal jurisprudence can be sustained upon any
other principle. Assuming that Miss Anthony believed she had a right to
vote, that fact constitutes no defense if in truth she had not the
right. She voluntarily gave a vote which was illegal, and thus is
subject to the penalty of the law.