What do you do when you have no political rights and yet your country is about to celebrate its centennial as a “democracy”?

That was the question facing women’s rights activists before the Fourth of July in 1876. Indignant that women not only had no political rights but also no part in the official Centennial celebration at the Philadelphia Exposition, leading suffragists plotted their response.

Some suggested that women across the country should march in solemn procession, draped in black, bells slowly tolling, with banners proclaiming “Taxation without representation is tyranny” and other revolutionary slogans.  Others proposed that women should have their own celebrations and protests, which is what many did.

Although Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott decided to go directly to their own convention rather than the official ceremony in Independence Hall, Stanton remembered that, “Others more brave and determined insisted that women had an equal right to the glory of the day and the freedom of the platform, and decided to take the risk of a public insult in order to present the women’s declaration and thus make it an historic document.”

Susan B. Anthony and four other suffragists were able to acquire tickets to the opening ceremony and they resolved to somehow present their strongly-worded “Declaration of Rights of Women.”  It read in part, “From the earliest history of our country, woman has shown equal devotion with man to the cause of freedom, and has stood firmly by his side in its defense.  Together, they have made this county what it is.  Women’s wealth, thought and labor have cemented the stones of every monument man has reared to liberty.”

As the authors of The History of Woman Suffrage wrote, “They would not, they dared not sacrifice the golden opportunity to which they had so long looked forward; their work was not for themselves alone, nor for the present generation, but for all women of all time.  The hopes of posterity were in their hands and they determined to place on record for the daughters of 1976, the fact that their mothers of 1876 had asserted their equality of rights, and impeached the government of that day for its injustice toward women.  Thus, in taking a grander step toward freedom than ever before, they would leave one bright remembrance for the women of the next centennial.”

The five women took their seats and one of them, Phoebe Cousins, remembered how anxious they were. “We were about to commit an overt act. . . .  A handful of women actuated by the same high principles as our fathers, stirred by the same desire for freedom, moved by the same impulse for liberty, were to again proclaim the right of self-government; were again to impeach the spirit of King George manifested in our rulers, and declare that taxation without representation is tyranny, that the divine right of one-half of the people to rule the other half is also despotism.

“As I followed the reading of [the Declaration of Independence]  . . . I trembled with suppressed emotion.  When Susan Anthony arose, with a look of intense pain, yet heroic determination in her face, I silently committed her to the Great Father who seeth not in part, to strengthen and comfort her heroic heart, and then she was lost to view . . .

Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage made their way down the aisle, uncertain how their approach might be met – or even if they would be able to reach the presiding officer, Senator Thomas Ferry, at all.  The bustle of preparation by the orchestra covered their advance and the foreign guests and dignitaries courteously made way.

In a matter of seconds, Anthony, in fitting words, presented the Declaration, rolled up and tied with red, white, and blue ribbon.  Senator Ferry’s face paled, he bowed low and, without a word, received the Declaration, which thus became part of the day’s official proceedings.

As The History recorded, “The ladies turned, scattering printed copies as they deliberately walked down the platform.  On every side eager hands were stretched; men stood on seats and asked for them, while General Hawley, thus defied and beaten in his audacious denial to women the right to present their declaration, shouted, ‘Order, order!’”

Anthony and the other women withdrew to read their Declaration across from Independence Hall and then participated in their own convention in a nearby church.

Naturally, there was immediate criticism.  The New York Tribune foresaw calamity.  “Made, as it was, through a very discourteous interruption, it prefigures new forms of violence and disregard of order which may accompany the participation of women in active partisan politics.”

However, a visitor from England put it more accurately when he observed, “The men in yonder square have had no meeting that future generations will revere.  They are not making history, they are simply applauding in their fathers what they have not the courage to do, and you are the historical meeting of the hour that American citizens a century hence will be honoring.”

And so, we honor it again, on this Fourth of July, 2012.

[When I was researching my book on the suffrage movement, I realized how often suffragists used the Fourth of July to voice their determination to win political rights for women.  Their actions showed what true patriots these women were, and how devoted they were to the dream of democracy.  Despite gross injustices, women kept faith in the American dream of equality, and devoted their lives to actually achieving it.  It’s a chapter in our history we can all be proud of.]

Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr., is the author of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement,” and a board member of the National Women’s History Project.  Mr. Cooney researched the personal archives and photographic collections of American suffragists, and included nearly a thousand images in his 496-page landmark book.  Covering this little known part of American history in depth, it was named one of the Five Best Books on the subject by The Wall Street Journal.  The website www.AmericanGraphicPress.com offers more information. Reach the author at agp@ebold.com.