Section 3 of Our Declaration of Rights, Says "that All Men Have a

natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God," etc. It will not be contended that women are not included within this provision.

The 8th section declares "that no freeman shall be imprisoned or disseized of his freehold," etc., but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land. Will woman be deprived of the guarantees in this section and the right of trial by jury because the masculine pronoun is used? Under the 11th section no man's property can be taken or applied to public use without the consent, etc. Is not the property of a woman as secure under this provision as that of a man? In the chapter upon forcible entry and detainer, the masculine pronoun is used throughout, but no court would hesitate for a moment in holding a woman to be within its provisions if she should wrongfully hold possession of premises.

In the whole Chancery Code of this State, consisting of 53 sections, the word woman, female, she, her, herself, or any other feminine pronouns are not to be found, while in the 5th, 8th, 15th, 18th, 19th, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st, 36th, 37th, and 46th, and some others, the masculine pronouns frequently occur. The same construction that would exclude a woman from the provisions of the statute in regard to the admission of attorneys, would place her without the Chancery Code. Yet no respectable attorney would claim because defendants in chancery are represented in the law by masculine pronouns, that a woman could not be made a defendant in chancery.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

MYRA BRADWELL.

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COURT.

No order having been entered or opinion filed in this case, on the seventh of October the applicant received from the court, through Hon. Norman L. Freeman, Supreme Court Reporter, the following communication:

STATE OF ILLINOIS, SUPREME COURT, THIRD GRAND } DIVISION, CLERK'S OFFICE, Ottawa, Oct. 6, 1869. }

MRS. MYRA BRADWELL--Madam: The court instruct me to inform you that they are compelled to deny your application for a license to practice as an attorney-at-law in the courts of this State, upon the ground that you would not be bound by the obligations necessary to be assumed where the relation of attorney and client shall exist, by reason of the disability imposed by your married condition--it being assumed that you are a married woman.

Applications of the same character have occasionally been made by persons under twenty-one years of age, and have always been denied upon the same ground that they are not bound by their contracts, being under a legal disability in that regard.

Until such disability shall be removed by legislation, the court regards itself powerless to grant your application.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

N. L. FREEMAN.

The applicant, satisfied that under the common law, as modified by our statutes, she could not properly be denied a license to practice law solely upon the ground of her married condition, on the 18th of November filed the following printed argument:

ADDITIONAL BRIEF.

In the Supreme Court of Illinois--Third Grand Division--September Term, 1869. [In the matter of the application of Myra Bradwell to obtain a license to practice as an Attorney-at-law.] And now again comes the said Myra Bradwell, it having been suggested to her that the court had assumed that she is a married woman, and therefore queried whether this would not prevent her from receiving a license, and files this her additional brief.

Your petitioner admits to your honors that she is a married woman (although she believes that fact does not appear in the record), but insists most firmly that under the laws of Illinois it is neither a crime nor a disqualification to be a married woman.

I propose to state very briefly,

1. What is an attorney?

2. Who may act as attorneys?

3. The rights and powers of married women in relation to their business and property under the common law.

4. Their rights and powers as to transacting business under the recent statutes of our State, with reference to their transacting business in their own names and acting as attorneys.

5. The avenues of trade and the professions opened to women by the liberal enactments of the law-makers, and the construction of the courts.

6. How the Legislature has regarded petitioner with reference to her rights to carry on business in her own name and act for herself.

I. WHAT IS AN ATTORNEY?--An attorney is "one who takes the turn or place of another."--Webster. "An attorney at-law," says Bouvier, "is an officer in a court of justice who is employed by a party in a cause to manage the same for him." All attorneys are agents. They transact business, and appear for, and in the place of their clients who have not the requisite learning, time, or desire to appear in suits for themselves.

Mr. Story, in his work upon "Agency," and Mr. Bouvier, in his "Institutes," in treating of the different kinds of agents, both speak first of attorneys-at-law. All the elementary writers upon law tell us that attorneys are agents. Without reference to our recent statutes modifying the common law, we will open the books and see who may be attorneys or agents.

II. WHO MAY BE ATTORNEYS OR AGENTS.--Mr. Story, in his work on Agency, says, sec. 7:

Secondly, who are capable of becoming agents? And here it may be stated that there are few persons who are excluded from acting as agents, or from exercising an authority delegated to them by others. Therefore, it is by no means necessary for a person to be sui juris or capable of acting in his or her own right, in order to qualify himself or herself to act for others. Thus, for example, monks, infants, femes covert, persons attainted, outlawed, or excommunicated villains, and aliens, may be agents for others.... A feme covert may be an attorney of another, to make livery to her husband upon a feoffment; and a husband may take such livery to his wife, although they are generally deemed but one person in law. She may also act as agent or otherwise of her own husband, and as such, with his consent, bind him by her contract, or other act; or she may act as the agent of another, in a contract, with her own husband.

III. UNDER THE COMMON LAW.--In Cox vs. Kitchin, 1 Bos. & Pul., 438, where a feme covert represented herself falsely to the tradesman to be a feme sole, and obtained goods on credit, it was held that she rendered herself personally responsible.

In Derry vs. Mazarine, 1 Ld. Raymond, 147, it was held that the wife of an alien, who was doing business in her own name, in England, was liable as a feme sole. In Hauptman vs. Catlin, 20 N. Y., 248, the Court of Appeals says:

Even before the late statute respecting married women, they were regarded as femes sole in respect to their separate property, and were as to such property liable on their contracts respecting the same, to the same extent and as though they were not under the disability of coverture. It was held by Lord Mansfield and his associates, in Corbett vs. Poelnitz, 1 T. R., 5, that if a husband and wife choose to separate, and the husband allows the wife a separate maintenance, she may contract and be sued as though she were unmarried, and may be held to bail and imprisoned on a ca. sa. without her husband. The court made this innovation on the ground that "the times alter new customs, and new manners arise, which require new exceptions, and a different application of the general rule.

IV. UNDER THE RECENT STATUTES.--In Conway vs. Smith and Wife, 13 Wis., 125, the court held that "the statute gives to married women, as necessarily incidental to the power of holding property to their own use, the power of making all contracts necessary or convenient to its beneficial enjoyment, and such contracts are to be regarded as valid in law, and may be enforced by legal remedies." Cole, J., dissenting.

In Barton vs. Beer, 35 Barbour, 81, the court, in treating of the liability of a married woman, says:

If she acts as a feme sole, she ought, in justice to the public, to be subjected to all the duties and liabilities of a feme sole.

In Emerson vs. Clayton, 32 Ill., 493, this honorable court held, that a married woman might bring replevin in her own name, for her separate property, against a third party, or even against her own husband, and that the act designed to make and did make a radical and thorough change in the condition of a feme covert; that she is to be regarded as unmarried, so far as her separate property is concerned.

In Pomeroy vs. Manhattan Life Insurance Co., 40 Ill., 398, Walker, C. J., in delivering the opinion of the court, says:

Under the statute she is entitled to the benefits it confers, and must be held liable for her acts performed in pursuance of the authority it confers. If it gives the rights of a sole ownership, it must impose the liabilities incident to such an act.

In Brownell vs. Dixon, 39 Ill., 207. this court not only held, under the act of 1861, that a married woman possessed of separate property might employ "an agent to transact her business", but that she might employ her own husband as such agent.

Relying upon the doctrine laid down in this case, we insist that the power "to employ an agent" carries with it the liability to pay such an agent a reasonable compensation for his services; and that if a married woman employs a man to work on her farm for one day, and agrees to give him two dollars therefor, and fails so to do, that a fair construction of the act of 1861 would allow him to sue her before a justice of the peace, and not drive him to the expense of filing a bill in chancery that would amount to more than a denial of justice.

Now, if under the Act of 1861 she can employ an agent to transact her business, we insist under the Act of 1869, giving the wife her own earnings, and the rights to sue for the same in her own name, free from her husband, that she has the right to be employed as an agent, or attorney, or physician, if she is capable, and to agree to do the duties of her profession. It would almost seem that this question is answered by the following extract from the opinion of this honorable court, as delivered by Mr. Justice Lawrence, in Carpenter vs. Mitchell, 2 Legal News, 44:

It may be said that a married woman can not adequately enjoy her separate property unless she can make contracts in regard to it. This is true, and hence her power to make contracts, so far as may be necessary for the use and enjoyment of her property, must be regarded as resulting by implication from the statute. If she owns houses she must be permitted to contract for their repair or rental. If she owns a farm she must be permitted to bargain for its cultivation, and to dispose of its products. We give these as illustrations of the power of contracting which is fairly implied in the law.

It is true, in this opinion the learned Judge confines his remarks strictly to the contracts of the wife made in relation to her separate property, and not in relation to general trade. This case arose before the passage of the Act of 1869. The right of a married woman to bring a suit in her own name is a necessary incident to the law. (Cole vs. Van Riper, 1 Legal News, 41.)

V. THE TRADES AND PROFESSIONS OPEN TO WOMEN.--The doors of many of our universities and law schools are now open to women upon an equality with men. The Government of the United States has employed women in many of its departments, and appointed many, both single and married, to office. Almost every large city in the Union has its regularly-admitted female physicians. The law schools of the nation have now many women in regular attendance, fitting themselves to perform the duties of the profession. The bar itself is not without its women lawyers, both single and married.

Mrs. Arabella A. Mansfield, wife of Prof. J. M. Mansfield, of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, was admitted to the bar of Iowa, upon the unanimous petition of the attorneys of that place, after a very careful examination, not only of the applicant, but of the statutes regulating the admission of attorneys.

The statute of Iowa provides that "any white male person, twenty-one years of age, who is an inhabitant of this State," and who satisfies the court, "that he possesses the requisite learning, and that he is of good moral character, may, by such court, be licensed to practice in all the courts of the State, upon taking the usual oath of office."

The clause construing statutes is as follows:

Words importing the singular number only, may be extended to several persons or things; and words importing the plural number only may be applied to one person, or thing; and words importing the masculine gender only may be extended to females.

In Mrs. Mansfield's case, the court not only held that she could be admitted, notwithstanding the fact that she was a married woman, under the clause of the statute giving a construction to the masculine noun "male," and pronoun "he"; but that the affirmative declaration, that male persons may be admitted, is not an implied denial of the right to females. We know of no instance in the United States, where a woman, whether married or single, who has complied with the statutes of the State in which she lived and applied for admission, that the proper court has refused to grant her license.

VI. HOW THE LEGISLATURE HAVE REGARDED YOUR PETITIONER.--It has been held, in England, that a wife who does business in her own name, with either the express or implied consent of her husband, should be treated as a feme sole, and be sued as such; and, with such consent, could be an administrator, executor, or guardian, in England or America.

The Legislature has, in repeated instances, acknowledged the capability and capacity of your petitioner to transact business, by providing that the Chicago Legal News, edited by her, and containing the decisions rendered by your honors, should be received in evidence in all the courts of this State, and in the following extract from the charter of the Chicago Legal News Company:

And all the real and personal estate of said Myra Bradwell shall be liable for the debts of said company, contracted while she is a stockholder therein, and all stock of said company owned by her, and the earnings thereof, shall be her sole and separate property, the same as if she were an unmarried woman; and she shall have the same right to hold any office or offices in said company, or transact any of its business that a feme sole would have.--Legal News, Edition Laws of 1869, p. 93. Sec. 4, p. 93.

Your petitioner claims that a married woman is not to be classed with an infant since the passage of the Act of 1869. A married woman may sue in her own name for her earnings, an infant can not. A married woman, if an attorney, could be committed for contempt of court the same as any other attorney. If she should collect money and refuse to pay it over, she could be sued for it the same as if she were single. A married woman is liable at law for all torts committed by her, unless done under the real or implied coercion of her husband. Having received a license to practice law as an attorney, and having acted as such, she would be estopped from saying she was not liable as an attorney upon any contract made by her in that capacity.

The fees that a married woman receives for her services as an attorney are just as much her earnings as the dollar that a sewing-woman receives for her day's work, and are just as much protected by the Act of 1869. Is it for the court to say, in advance, that it will not admit a married woman? Should she be admitted, and fail to perform her duty, or to comply with all her contracts as an attorney, could not the court, upon application, strike her name from the roll, or inflict more summary punishment?

Your petitioner has complied with all the provisions of the statutes of the State regulating the admission of attorneys, and asks, as a matter of right and justice, standing as she does upon the law of the land, that she be admitted.

Not a line of written law, or a single decision in our State, can be found disqualifying a married woman from acting as an attorney. This honorable court can send me from its bar, and prevent me from practicing as an attorney, and it is of small consequence; but if, in so doing, your honors say to me: "You can not receive a license to practice as an attorney-at-law in the courts of this State upon the ground that you would not be bound by the obligations necessary to be assumed, where the relation of attorney and client shall exist, by reason of the disability imposed by your married condition"; you, in my judgment, in striking me down, strike a blow at the rights of every married woman in the great State of Illinois who is dependent on her labor for support, and say to her, you can not enter into the smallest contract in relation to your earnings or separate property, that can be enforced against you in a court of law.

This result can, in my opinion, only be reached by disregarding the liberal statutes of our State, passed for the sole purpose of extending the rights of married women, and forever removing from our law, relating to their power to contract in regard to their earnings and property, the fossil foot-prints of the feudal system, and following the strictest rules of the common law.

Lord Mansfield, notwithstanding the fact that slaves had been held, bought and sold for years in the streets of London, declared that the moment a slave touched British soil his shackles fell. The same noble lord held that a married woman might under certain circumstances, contract, and sue, and be sued at law, as a single woman, upon the ground that, the reason of the law ceasing, the law itself must cease; and that, as the usages of society alter, the law must adapt itself to the various situations of mankind. Mr. Justice Buller, in speaking of this decision years afterward, declared that "the points there decided were founded in good sense, and adapted to the transactions, the understanding, and the welfare of mankind."

Apply this reasoning in our State, now that the Legislature has removed every claim that the husband had, under the common law, upon the property of the wife, except his life estate in her hands, which only commences with her death, and all difficulty is removed, and the case is clear.

MYRA BRADWELL.

Applicant, with a view of placing herself in a position to obtain the benefit of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, and the Civil Rights Bill, applicable to her case, on the second day of January, 1870, filed the following affidavit and points:

In the Supreme Court of Illinois, Third Grand Division--September Term, 1869. [In the matter of the application of Myra Bradwell to obtain a license to practice as an Attorney-at-law]--State of Illinois, County of Cook, ss.: Myra Bradwell, being duly sworn, doth depose and say that she was born in Manchester, in the State of Vermont, and that she was a citizen of said State last named, that she is now a citizen of the United States; that she is and has been for many years last past a resident of Chicago, in said State of Illinois, and further deponent says not.

MYRA BRADWELL.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 31st day of December, A.D. 1869.

E. B. PAYNE, Notary Public. [Seal.]

And now again comes the said Myra Bradwell, and files the following additional points:

VII. Your petitioner claims under the XIV. Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and the act commonly known as the "Civil Rights Bill," the "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property," and the right to exercise and follow the profession of an attorney-at-law upon the same terms, conditions, and restrictions as are applied to and imposed upon every other citizen of the State of Illinois, and none other.

And that having complied with all the laws of the State, and the rules and regulations of this honorable court, for the admission of attorneys, it is contrary to the true intent and meaning of said Amendment and said "Civil Rights Bill," for your petitioner to be refused a license to practice law, upon the sole ground of her "married condition."

VIII. And your petitioner further claims, that having been born in the State of Vermont, and having been a citizen of the State last named, and of the United States, and having removed to the State of Illinois, where she has resided for many years, that under the second section of the IV. Article of the Constitution of the United States, which is in these words, "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States," she has guaranteed to her the privileges and immunities which every other citizen of the State of Illinois has, among which may be named the protection of the Government, the right to the enjoyment of life and liberty, to acquire and possess property, to reside in the State, to carry on trade, and the right to follow any professional pursuit under the laws of the State, which must work equally upon all the citizens of the State, and that under this section of the Constitution she has a right to receive a license to practice law upon the same terms and conditions as the most favored citizen of the State of Illinois.

(People vs. Washington, 36 California R., 662. Corfield vs. Coryell, 4 Washington C. R., 381.)

MYRA BRADWELL.

On last week the court filed an opinion denying the application, for a very carefully prepared copy of which we are indebted to Mr. Freeman:

OPINION OF THE COURT DENYING THE APPLICATION.

The applicant, in her printed argument, combats the decision of the court in the case of Carpenter vs. Mitchell, June term, 1869, in which we held a married woman was not bound by contracts having no relation to her own property. We are not inclined to go over again the grounds of that decision. It was the result of a good deal of deliberation and discussion in our council chamber, and the confidence of the present members of this court in its correctness can not easily be shaken. We are in accord with all the courts in this country which have had occasion to pass upon a similar question, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in Conway vs. Smith, 13 Wis., 125, differing from us only on the minor point as to whether, in regard to contracts concerning the separate property of married women, the law side of the court would take jurisdiction.

As to the main question, the right of married women to make contracts not affecting their separate property, the position of those who assert such right is, that because the Legislature has expressly removed the common law disabilities of married women in regard to holding property not derived from their husbands, it has therefore, by necessary implication, also removed all their common law disabilities in regard to making contracts, and invited them to enter, equally with men, upon those fields of trade and speculation by which property is acquired through the agency of contracts.

The hiatus between the premise and the conclusion is too wide for us to bridge. It may be desirable that the Legislature should relieve married women from all their common law disabilities. But to say that it has done so in the Act of 1861, the language of which is carefully guarded, and which makes no allusion to contracts, and does not use that or any equivalent term, would be simple misinterpretation. It would be going as far beyond the meaning of that act as that act goes beyond the common law in changing the legal status of women. The act itself is wise and just, and therefore entitled to a liberal interpretation.

This we have endeavored to give it in the cases that have come before us, but we do not intend to decide that the Legislature has gone to a length in its measure of reform for which the language it has carefully used furnishes no warrant.

It is urged, however, that the law of the last session of the Legislature, which gives to married women the separate control of their earnings, must be construed as giving to them the right to contract in regard to their personal services. This act had no application to the case of Carpenter vs. Mitchell, having been passed after that suit was commenced, and we were unmindful of it when considering this application at the last term. Neither do we now propose to consider how far it extends the power of a married woman to contract, since, after further consultation in regard to this application, we find ourselves constrained to hold that the sex of the applicant, independently of coverture; is, as our law now stands, a sufficient reason for not granting this license.

Although an attorney-at-law is an agent, as claimed by the applicant's argument, when he has been retained to act for another, yet he is also much more than an agent. He is an officer of the court, holding his commission in this State, from two of the members of this court, and subject to be disbarred by this court for what our statute calls "mal-conduct in his office." He is appointed to assist in the administration of justice, is required to take an oath of office, and is privileged from arrest while attending courts.

Our statute provides that no person shall be permitted to practice as an attorney or counselor-at-law, without having previously obtained a license for that purpose from two of the justices of the Supreme Court. By the second section of the act, it is provided that no person shall be entitled to receive a license until he shall have obtained a certificate, from the court of some county, of his good moral character, and this is the only express limitation upon the exercise of the power thus intrusted to this court. In all other respects it is left to our discretion to establish the rules by which admission to this office shall be determined. But this discretion is not an arbitrary one, and must be held subject to at least two limitations. One is, that the court should establish such terms of admission as will promote the proper administration of justice; the second, that it should not admit any persons or class of persons who are not intended by the Legislature to be admitted, even though their exclusion is not expressly required by the statute.

The substance of the last limitation is simply that this important trust reposed in us should be exercised in conformity with the designs of the power creating it.

Whether, in the existing social relations between men and women, it would promote the proper administration of justice, and the general well-being of society, to permit women to engage in the trial of cases at the bar, is a question opening a wide field of discussion upon which it is not necessary for us to enter. It is sufficient to say that, in our opinion, the other implied limitation upon our power, to which we have above referred, must operate to prevent our admitting women to the office of attorney-at-law. If we were to admit them, we should be exercising the authority conferred upon us in a manner which, we are fully satisfied, was never contemplated by the Legislature.

Upon this question it seems to us neither this applicant herself, nor any unprejudiced and intelligent person, can entertain the slightest doubt. It is to be remembered that at the time this statute was enacted we had, by express provision, adopted the common law of England; and, with three exceptions, the statutes of that country passed prior to the fourth year of James the First, so far as they were applicable to our condition.

It is to be also remembered that female attorneys-at-law were unknown in England, and a proposition that a woman should enter the courts of Westminster Hall in that capacity, or as a barrister, would have created hardly less astonishment than one that she should ascend the bench of Bishops, or be elected to a seat in the House of Commons. It is to be further remembered, that when our act was passed, that school of reform which claims for women participation in the making and administering of the laws had not then arisen, or, if here and there a writer had advanced such theories, they were regarded rather as abstract speculations than as an actual basis for action.

That God designed the sexes to occupy different spheres of action, and that it belonged to men to make, apply, and execute the laws, was regarded as an almost axiomatic truth. It may have been a radical error, and we are by no means certain it was not, but that this was the universal belief certainly admits of no denial. A direct participation in the affairs of government, in even the most elementary form, namely, the right of suffrage, was not then claimed, and has not yet been conceded, unless recently in one of the newly-settled Territories of the West.

In view of these facts, we are certainly warranted in saying, that when the Legislature gave to this court the power of granting licenses to practice law, it was with not the slightest expectation that this privilege would be extended equally to men and women.

Neither has there been any legislation since that period which would justify us in presuming a change in the legislative intent. Our laws to-day in regard to women, are substantially what they have always been, except in the change wrought by the acts of 1861 and 1869, giving to married women the right to control their own property and earnings.

Whatever, then, may be our individual opinions as to the admission of women to the bar, we do not deem ourselves at liberty to exercise our power in a mode never contemplated by the Legislature, and inconsistent with the usages of courts of the common law from the origin of the system to the present day.

But it is not merely an immense innovation in our own usages as a court that we are asked to make. This step, if taken by us, would mean that in the opinion of this tribunal, every civil office in this State may be filled by women--that it is in harmony with the spirit of our Constitution and laws that women should be made governors, judges, and sheriffs. This we are not yet prepared to hold.

In our opinion, it is not the province of a court to attempt, by giving a new interpretation to an ancient statute, to introduce so important a change in the legal position of one-half the people. Courts of justice were not intended to be made the instruments of pushing forward measures of popular reform. If it be desirable that those offices which we have borrowed from the English law, and which from their origin some centuries ago down to the present time, have been filled exclusively by men, should also be made accessible to women, then let the change be made, but let it be made by that department of the Government to whom the Constitution has intrusted the power of changing the laws. The great body of our law rests merely upon ancient usage. The right of a husband in this State to the personal property of his wife, before the act of 1861, rested simply upon such usage, yet who could have justified this court if, prior to the passage of that act, it had solemnly decided that it was unreasonable that the property of the wife should vest in the husband, and this usage should no longer be recognized? Yet was it not as unreasonable that a woman by marriage should lose the title of her personal property, as it is that she should not receive from us a license to practice law? The rule in both cases, until the law of 1861, rested upon the same common law usage and could have pleaded the same antiquity. In the one case it was never pretended that this court could properly overturn the rule, and we do not see how we could be justified should we disregard it in the other. The principle can not be too strictly and conscientiously observed, that each of the three departments of the Government should avoid encroachment upon the other, and that it does not belong to the judiciary to attempt to inaugurate great social or political reforms. The mere fact that women have never been licensed as attorneys-at-law is, in a tribunal where immemorial usage is as much respected as it is and ought to be in courts of justice, a sufficient reason for declining to exercise our discretion in their favor, until the propriety of their participating in the offices of State and the administration of public affairs shall have been recognized by the law-making department of the Government--that department to which the initiative in great measures of reform properly belongs. For us to attempt, in a matter of this importance, to inaugurate a practice at variance with all the precedents of the law we are sworn to administer, would be an act of judicial usurpation deserving of the gravest censure. If we could disregard, in this matter, the authority of those unwritten usages which make the great body of our law, we might do so in any other, and the dearest rights of person and property would become a matter of mere judicial discretion.

But it is said the 28th section of chapter 90 of the Revised Statutes of 1845 provides that, whenever any person is referred to in the statute by words importing the masculine gender, females as well as males shall be deemed to be included. But the 36th section of the same chapter provides that this rule of construction shall not apply where there is anything in the subject or context repugnant to such construction. That is the case in the present instance.

In the view we have taken of this question the argument drawn by the applicant from the Constitution of the United States has no pertinency.

In conclusion we would add that, while we are constrained to refuse this application, we respect the motive which prompts it, and we entertain a profound sympathy with those efforts which are being so widely made to reasonably enlarge the field for the exercise of woman's industry and talent. While those theories which are popularly known as "woman's rights" can not be expected to meet with a very cordial acceptance among the members of a profession which, more than any other, inclines its followers, if not to stand immovable upon the ancient ways, at least to make no hot haste in measures of reform, still all right-minded men must gladly see new spheres of action opened to woman, and greater inducements offered her to seek the highest and widest culture. There are some departments of the legal profession in which she can appropriately labor.

Whether, on the other hand, to engage in the hot strifes of the Bar, in the presence of the public, and with momentous verdicts the prizes of the struggle would not tend to destroy the deference and delicacy with which it is the pride of our ruder sex to treat her, is a matter certainly worthy of her consideration. But the important question is, what effect the presence of women as barristers in our courts would have upon the administration of justice, and the question can be satisfactorily answered only in the light of experience.

If the Legislature shall choose to remove the existing barriers and authorize us to issue licenses equally to men and women, we shall cheerfully obey, trusting to the good sense and sound judgment of women themselves to seek those departments of the practice in which they can labor without reasonable objection.

Application denied.

The opinion will be best understood by reading our arguments first, and knowing all the points made before the court. We have not the space to review the opinion in this issue, but shall do so at some future day, and will simply say now, that what the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case was to the rights of negroes as citizens of the United States, this decision is to the political rights of women in Illinois--annihilation.

CAN A WOMAN PRACTICE LAW OR HOLD ANY OFFICE IN ILLINOIS?

Full Report of the Proceedings in the Supreme Court of Illinois and the Supreme Court of the United States, upon the application of Myra Bradwell to be admitted to the Bar.

On pp. 145, 146, and 147 of this volume, we gave the proceedings in full in the Supreme Court of this State upon our application to be admitted to practice law, including the opinion of Judge Lawrence, the present learned Chief-Justice of that tribunal, denying the application on the sole ground that a woman could not be admitted to the bar or hold any office in Illinois. As soon after this opinion was announced as we could obtain a certified copy of the record, we placed it in the hands of the Hon. Matt. H. Carpenter, one of the ablest constitutional lawyers in the nation, with a view of obtaining a writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Carpenter prepared and presented our petition for a writ of error, together with the record. The following is the indorsement upon the record, allowing the writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States:

I allow a writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States to the Supreme Court of Illinois, in the suit and judgment of which the foregoing record is a transcript.

SAM. F. MILLER, Asso. Jus. Sup. Court U. S.

August 16, 1870.

CITATION TO THE STATE OF ILLINOIS TO APPEAR AT WASHINGTON.

The United States of America to the State of Illinois:--The State of Illinois is hereby cited and admonished to appear and be at the Supreme Court of the United States to be holden at Washington City in the District of Columbia, on the first Monday of December next, pursuant to a writ of error filed in the clerk's office of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, wherein Myra Bradwell is plaintiff in error, and the State of Illinois is defendant in error, to show cause, if any there be, why the judgment in the said writ of error mentioned should not be corrected, and speedy justice should not be done to the parties in that behalf.

Witness the Honorable Salmon P. Chase, Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States this 16th day of August, A.D. 1870.

SAM. F. MILLER, Asso. Jus. Sup. Court U. S.

WRIT OF ERROR.

United States of America, ss.:

Because, in the record and proceedings, as also in the rendition of the judgment of a plea which is in the said Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, before you, or some of you, being the highest court of law or equity of the said State in which a decision could be had in the said suit in the matter of the application of Myra Bradwell, of Cook County, Illinois for a license to practice law in the courts of said State, wherein was drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision was against their validity; or wherein was drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, said State, on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, and the decision was in favor of such their validity; or wherein was drawn in question the construction of a clause of the Constitution, or of a treaty, or statute of, or commission held under, the United States, and the decision was against the title, right, privilege, or exemption, specially set up or claimed under such clause of the said Constitution, treaty, statute, or commission, a manifest error hath happened, to the great damage of the said Myra Bradwell, as by her complaint appears. We being willing that error, if any hath been, should be duly corrected, and full and speedy justice done to the parties aforesaid in this behalf, do command you, if judgment be therein given, that then under your seal, distinctly and openly, you send the record and proceedings aforesaid, with all things concerning the same, to the Supreme Court of the United States, together with this writ, so that you have the same at Washington on the first Monday of December next, in the said Supreme Court, to be then and there held, that the record and proceedings aforesaid being inspected, the said Supreme Court may cause further to be done therein to correct that error what of right, and according to the laws and custom of the United States, should be done.

Witness the Honorable Salmon P. Chase, Chief-Justice of the said Supreme Court, the first Monday of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine.

D. W. MIDDLETON, Clerk of the Supreme Court of the U. S.

Issued 23d August, 1870. Allowed by me,

SAM. F. MILLER, Asso. Jus. Sup. Court, U. S.

While these suits for the recognition of the political rights of women were pending, a contest of a different character took place in Illinois. Mrs. Myra Bradwell, editor of the Chicago Legal News, applied for admission to the bar of that State, and was refused. She made this denial of her civil rights a test case by bringing suit against the State of Illinois in the Supreme Court of the United States. The case was argued for the plaintiff in the December term, 1871, by the Hon. Matt. H. Carpenter, of Wisconsin, an eminent republican United States Senator. In addressing the Court Mr. Carpenter said:

This is a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, to review the proceedings of that court, denying the petition of the plaintiff in error to be admitted to practice as an attorney and counselor of that court, which right was claimed by the plaintiff in error in that court under the XIV. Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The plaintiff in error is a married woman, of full age, a citizen of the United States and of the State of Illinois; was ascertained and certified to be duly qualified in respect of character and attainments, but was denied admission to the bar for the sole reason that she was a married woman. This is the error relied upon to reverse the proceedings below.

By the rules of this court no person can be admitted to practice at the bar without service for a fixed term in the highest court of the State in which such person resides. Consequently a denial of admission in the highest court of the State is an insurmountable obstacle to admission to the bar of this court. This record, therefore, presents the broad question, whether a married woman, being a citizen of the United States and of a State, and possessing the necessary qualifications, is entitled by the Constitution of the United States to be admitted to practice as an attorney and counselor-at-law in the courts of the State in which she resides. This is a question not of taste, propriety, or politeness, but of civil right. Before proceeding to discuss this question, it may be well to distinguish it from the question of the right of female citizens to participate in the exercise of the elective franchise.

The great problem of female suffrage, the solution of which lies in our immediate future, naturally enough, from its transcendent importance, draws to itself, in prejudiced minds, every question relating to the civil rights of women; and it seems to be feared that doing justice to woman's rights in any particular would probably be followed by the establishment of the right of female suffrage, which, it is assumed, would overthrow Christianity, defeat the ends of modern civilization, and upturn the world.

While I do not believe that female suffrage has been secured by the existing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, neither do I look upon that result as at all to be dreaded. It is not, in my opinion, a question of woman's rights merely, but, in a far greater degree, a question of man's rights. When God created man, he announced the law of his being, that it was not well for him to be alone, and so He created woman to be his helpmate and companion. Commencing with the barbarism of the East, and journeying through the nations toward the bright light of civilization in the West, it will everywhere be found that, just in proportion to the equality of women with men in the enjoyment of social and civil rights and privileges, both sexes are proportionately advanced in refinement and all that ennobles human nature. In our own country, where women are received on an equality with men, we find good order and good manners prevailing. Because women frequent railroad cars and steamboats, markets, shops, and post-offices, those places must be, and are, conducted with order and decency. The only great resorts from which woman is excluded by law are the election places; and the violence, rowdyism, profanity, and obscenity of the gathering there in our largest cities are sufficient to drive decent men, even, away from the polls. If our wives, sisters, and daughters were going to the polls, we should go with them, and good order would be observed, or a row would follow, which would secure order in the future. I have more faith in female suffrage, to reform the abuses of our election system in the large cities, than I have in the penal election laws to be enforced by soldiers and marines. Who believes that, if ladies were admitted to seats in Congress, or upon the bench, or were participating in discussions at the bar, such proceedings would thereby be rendered less refined, or that less regard would be paid to the rights of all?

But whether women should be admitted to the right of suffrage, is one thing; whether this end has already been accomplished, is quite another. The XIV. Amendment forbids the States to make or enforce any law which shall abridge "the privileges or immunities" of a citizen. But whether the right to vote is covered by the phrase "privileges and immunities," was much discussed under the provisions of the old Constitution; and at least one of the earliest decisions drew a distinction between "privileges and immunities" and political rights. On the other hand, Mr. Justice Washington, in a celebrated case, expressed the opinion, that the right to vote and hold office was included in this phrase. But in neither of the cases was this point directly involved, and both opinions are obiter dicta in relation to it.

But the XIV. and XV. Amendments seem to settle this question against the right of female suffrage. These amendments seem to recognize the distinction at first pointed out between "privileges and immunities," and the right to vote. The XIV. Amendment declares,

All persons born and naturalized in the United States, etc., are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside.

Of course, women, as well as men, are included in this provision, and recognized as citizens. This Amendment further declares:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.

If the privileges and immunities of a citizen can not be abridged, then, of course, the privileges and immunities of all citizens must be the same. The second section of this Amendment provides that

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians, not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election, etc., is denied to any of the male inhabitants, being twenty-one years of age, etc., the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

It can not be denied, that the right or power of a State to exclude a portion of its male citizens from the right to vote, is recognized by this second section; from which it follows, that the right to vote is not one of the "privileges or immunities" which the first section declares shall not be abridged by any State. The right of female suffrage is also inferentially denied by that provision of the second section, above quoted, which provides that when a State shall deny the right to vote to any male citizen,

The basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens in such State.

In the first place, it is to be observed that the basis of representation in a State, which is the whole number of persons--male and female, adults and infants--is only to be reduced when the State shall exclude a portion "of the male inhabitants of such State." The exclusion of female inhabitants, and infants under the age of twenty-one years, does not effect a reduction of the basis of representation in such State. And, again, when a State does exclude a portion of its male inhabitants, etc., the basis of representation in such State is not reduced in the proportion which the number of such excluded males bears to the number of persons--male and female--in such State; but only

In the proportion which the number of such (excluded) male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

This provision assumes that females are no part of the voting population of a State. The XV. Amendment is equally decisive. It recognizes the right--that is, power--of any State to exclude a portion of its citizens from the right to vote, and only narrows this right in favor of a particular class. Its language is:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged, etc., on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

This amendment was wholly unnecessary upon the theory that the XIV. Amendment had established or recognized the right of every citizen to vote. It recognizes the right of a State to exclude a portion of its citizens, and only restrains that power so far as to provide that citizens shall not be excluded on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. In every other case, the power of exclusion recognized by the XIV. Amendment is untouched by the XV. It is also worthy of notice that, throughout the XIV. and XV. Amendments, voting is not treated as, or denominated a privilege, and evidently was not intended to be, nor regarded as included in the "privileges or immunities" of a citizen, which no State can abridge for any cause whatever. I have taken this pains to distinguish between the "privileges and immunities" of a citizen, and the "right" of a citizen to vote, not because I feared that this court would deny one, even if the other would follow, but to quiet the fears of the timid and conservative.

I come now to the narrower and precise question before the court: Can a female citizen, duly qualified in respect of age, character, and learning, claim, under the XIV. Amendment, the privilege of earning a livelihood by practicing at the bar of a judicial court? It was provided by the original Constitution:

The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

Under this provision each State could determine for itself what the privileges and immunities of its citizens should be. A citizen emigrating from one State to another carried with him, not the privileges and immunities he enjoyed in his native State, but was entitled, in the State of his adoption, to such privileges and immunities as were enjoyed by the class of citizens to which he belonged by the laws of such adopted State. A white citizen of one State, where no property qualification for voting was required, emigrating to a State which required such qualification, must conform to it before he could claim the right to vote. A colored citizen, authorized to hold property in Massachusetts, emigrating to South Carolina, where all colored persons were excluded from such right, derived no aid, in this respect, from the Constitution of the United States, but was compelled to submit to all the incapacities laid by the laws of that State upon free persons of color born and residing therein. A married woman, a citizen of the State of Wisconsin, where by law she was capable of holding separate estate, and making contracts concerning the same, emigrating to a State where the common law in this regard prevailed, could not buy and sell property in her own name, or contract in reference thereto.

But the XIV. Amendment executes itself in every State of the Union. Whatever are the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the State of New York, such citizen, emigrating, carries them with him into any other State of the Union. It utters the will of the United States in every State, and silences every State constitution, usage, or law which conflicts with it. If to be admitted to the bar, on attaining the age and learning required by law, be one of the privileges of a white citizen in the State of New York, it is equally the privilege of a colored citizen in that State; and if in that State, then in any State. If no State may "make or enforce any law" to abridge the privileges of a citizen, it must follow that the privileges of all citizens are the same. We have already seen that the right to vote is not one of those privileges which are declared to be common to all citizens, and which no State may abridge; but that it is a political right, which any State may deny to a citizen, except on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It therefore only remains to determine whether admission to the bar belongs to that class of privileges which a State may not abridge, or that class of political rights as to which a State may discriminate between its citizens.

In discussing this subject, we are compelled to use the words "privileges and immunities" and the word "rights" in the precise sense in which they are employed in the Constitution. In popular language, and even in the general treatises of law writers, the words "rights" and "privileges" are used synonymously. Those privileges which are secured to a man by the law are his rights; and the great charter of England declares that the ancient privileges enjoyed by Englishmen, are the undoubted rights of Englishmen. But, as we have seen, the XIV. and XV. Amendments distinguish between privileges and rights; and it must be confessed that it is paradoxical to say, as the XIV. Amendment clearly does, that the "privileges" of a citizen shall not be abridged, while his "right" to vote may be. But a judicial construction of the Constitution is wholly different from a mere exercise in philology. The question is not whether certain words were aptly employed--but the context must be searched to ascertain the sense in which such words were used.

It is evident that there are certain "privileges and immunities" which belong to a citizen of the United States as such; otherwise it would be nonsense for the XIV. Amendment to prohibit a State from abridging them; and it is equally evident from the XIV. Amendment that the right to vote is not one of those privileges. And the question recurs whether admission to the bar, the proper qualification being possessed, is one of the privileges which a State may not deny. In Cummings vs. Missouri, 4 Wall., 321, this court say:

In France, deprivation or suspension of civil rights, or some of them--and among these of the right of voting, of eligibility to office, of taking part in family councils, of being guardian or trustee, of bearing arms, and of teaching or being employed in a school or seminary of learning--are punishments prescribed by her code. The theory upon which our political institutions rest is, that all men have certain inalienable rights--that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that in the pursuit of happiness all avocations, all honors, all positions, are alike open to every one, and that in the protection of these rights all are equal before the law. Any deprivation or extension of any of these rights for past conduct is punishment, and can be in no otherwise defined.

No broader or better enumeration of the privileges which pertain to American citizenship could be given. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and, in the pursuit of happiness, all avocations, all honors, all positions, are alike open to every one; and in the protection of these rights all are equal before the law." In ex parte Garland (4 Wall., 378) this court say:

The profession of an attorney and counselor is not like an office created by an act of Congress, which depends for its continuance, its powers, and its emoluments upon the will of its creator, and the possession of which may be burdened with any conditions not prohibited by the Constitution. Attorneys and counselors are not officers of the United States; they are not elected or appointed in the manner prescribed by the Constitution for the election and appointment of such officers. They are officers of the court, admitted as such by its order, upon evidence of their possessing sufficient legal learning and fair private character.... The order of admission is the judgment of the court, that the parties possess the requisite qualifications as attorneys and counselors, and are entitled to appear as such and conduct causes therein. From its entry the parties become officers of the court, and are responsible to it for professional misconduct. They hold their office during good behavior, and can only be deprived of it for misconduct, ascertained and declared by the judgment of the court, after opportunity to be heard has been offered. (Ex parte Heyfron, 7 How., Miss., 127; Fletcher vs. Daingerfield, 20 Cal., 430.) Their admission or their exclusion is not the exercise of a mere ministerial power. It is the exercise of judicial power, and has been so held in numerous cases.... The attorney and counselor being, by the solemn judicial act of the court, clothed with his office, does not hold it as a matter of grace and favor. The right which it confers upon him to appear for suitors, and to argue causes, is something more than a mere indulgence, revocable at the pleasure of the court, or at the command of the Legislature. It is a right of which he can only be deprived by the judgment of the court, for moral or professional delinquency. The Legislature may undoubtedly prescribe qualifications for the office, to which he must conform, as it may, where it has exclusive jurisdiction, prescribe qualifications for the pursuit of the ordinary avocations of life.

It is now well settled that the courts, in admitting attorneys to, and in expelling them from, the bar, act judicially, and that such proceedings are subject to review on writ of error or appeal, as the case may be. (Ex parte Cooper, 22 N. Y., 67. Strother vs. Missouri, 1 Mo., 605. Ex parte Secomb, 19 How., 9. Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall., 378.)

From these cases the conclusion is irresistible, that the profession of the law, like the clerical profession and that of medicine, is an avocation open to every citizen of the United States. And while the Legislature may prescribe qualifications for entering upon this pursuit, they can not, under the guise of fixing qualifications, exclude a class of citizens from admission to the bar. The Legislature may say at what age candidates shall be admitted; may elevate or depress the standard of learning required. But a qualification, to which a whole class of citizens never can attain, is not a regulation of admission to the bar, but is, as to such citizens, a prohibition. For instance, a State Legislature could not, in enumerating the qualifications, require the candidate to be a white citizen. This would be the exclusion of all colored citizens, without regard to age, character, or learning. Such an act would abridge the rights of all colored citizens, by denying them admission into one of the avocations which this court has declared is alike open to every one. I presume it will be admitted that such an act would be void. I am certain this court would declare it void. And I challenge the most astute mind to draw any distinction between such an act and a custom, usage, or law of a State, which denies this privilege to all female citizens without regard to age, character, or learning. If the Legislature may, under pretense of fixing qualifications, declare that no female citizen shall be permitted to practice law, they may as well declare that no colored citizen shall practice law. It should be borne in mind that the only provision in the Constitution of the United States which secures to colored male citizens the privilege of admission to the bar, or the pursuit of the other ordinary avocations of life, is that provision that

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of a citizen.

If this provision does not open all the professions, all the avocations, all the methods by which a man may pursue happiness, to the colored as well as the white man, then the Legislatures of the States may exclude colored men from all the honorable pursuits of life, and compel them to support their existence in a condition of servitude. And if this provision does protect the colored citizen, then it protects every citizen, black or white, male or female. Why may a colored citizen buy, hold, and sell land in any State of the Union? Because he is a citizen of the United States, and that is one of the privileges of a citizen. Why may a colored citizen be admitted to the bar? Because he is a citizen, and that is one of the avocations open to every citizen; and no State can abridge his right to pursue it. Certainly no other reason can be given.

Now, let us come to the case of Myra Bradwell. She is a citizen of the United States, and of the State of Illinois, residing therein; she has been judicially ascertained to be of full age, and to possess the requisite character and learning. Indeed, the court below, in their opinion, found in the record, page 9, say: "Of the ample qualifications of the applicant we have no doubt." Still, admission to the bar was denied the petitioner, not upon the ground that she was not a citizen; not for want of age or qualifications; not because the profession of the law is not one of those avocations which are open to every American citizen as matter of right, upon complying with the reasonable regulations prescribed by the Legislature: but upon the sole ground that inconvenience would result from permitting her to enjoy her legal rights in this, to wit, that her clients might have difficulty in enforcing the contracts they might make with her, as their attorney, because of her being a married woman.

Now, with entire respect to that court, it is submitted that this argument ab inconvenienti, which might have been urged with whatever force belongs to it, against adopting the XIV. Amendment in the full scope of its language, is utterly futile to resist its full and proper operation, now that it has been adopted. Concede, for argument, that the XIV. Amendment ought to have read thus:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of any citizens except married women;

yet that exception is not found in the sweeping provision of this amendment. It is provided that citizens may be disfranchised for treason; but it is nowhere provided that a citizen shall be disfranchised for being a married woman. The opinion of the court below puts a limitation upon this unlimited constitutional provision. If this court shall approve this exception, in the very teeth of the unambiguous language of the Constitution, where may we expect judicial legislation to stop? Can this court say that married women have no rights that are to be respected? Can this court say that, when the XIV. Amendment speaks of all persons, etc., and declares them to be citizens, it means all male persons and unmarried females? Or can this court say that, when the XIV. Amendment declares "the privileges of no citizen shall be abridged," it means that the privileges of no male citizen or unmarried female citizen shall be abridged? This would be bold dealing with the constitutional provision. It would be excluding a large proportion of the citizens of the United States from privileges which the Constitution declares shall be the inheritance of every citizen alike.

But it is respectfully submitted that the court below erred in holding that a married woman, admitted to the bar under the XIV. Amendment, would not be liable on contracts, express or implied, between her and her clients. In Wisconsin, when the Legislature passed the act protecting married women in the enjoyment of their separate estate, our court, upon reasoning that can not be gainsaid, held that the Legislature must have intended all the natural and logical results of the act in question; and, therefore, that the contracts of a married woman, relating to her separate estate, were as binding as if made by a feme sole. It is submitted that, for still stronger reasons, the great innovation of the XIV. Amendment should be carried to its logical conclusion, and that it sweeps away the principles of the common law, as it does the express provisions of State constitutions and statutes.

But again: Mrs. Bradwell, admitted to the bar, becomes an officer of the court, subject to its summary jurisdiction. Any malpractice or unprofessional conduct towards her client would be punishable by fine, imprisonment, or expulsion from the bar, or by all three. Her clients would, therefore, not be compelled to resort to actions at law against her. But if the courts of Illinois should refuse to exercise this summary jurisdiction, and should hold that actions at law could not be maintained on contracts between her and her clients, it might result that she would not be as generally employed as she otherwise would be. But that is no reason why she should be prohibited from appearing and trying causes for clients who are willing to rely upon her integrity and honor.

But let it not be supposed that, in trying to answer as to the inconveniences imagined by the court below, I am at all departing from the broad ground of constitutional right upon which I rest this cause. I maintain that the XIV. Amendment opens to every citizen of the United States, male or female, black or white, married or single, the honorable professions as well as the servile employments of life; and that no citizen can be excluded from any one of them. Intelligence, integrity, and honor are the only qualifications that can be prescribed as conditions precedent to an entry upon any honorable pursuit or profitable avocation, and all the privileges and immunities which I vindicate to a colored citizen, I vindicate to our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters. The inequalities of sex will undoubtedly have their influence, and be considered by every client desiring to employ counsel.

There may be cases in which a client's rights can only be rescued by an exercise of the rough qualities possessed by men. There are many cases in which the telling sympathy and the silver voice of woman would accomplish more than the severity and sternness of man could achieve. Of a bar composed of men and women of equal integrity and learning, women might be more or less frequently retained, as the taste or judgment of clients might dictate. But the broad shield of the Constitution is over them all, and protects each in that measure of success which his or her individual merits may secure.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. December Term, 1872. Myra Bradwell, Plaintiff in Error, vs. the State of Illinois. In error to the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois.

1. The Supreme Court of Illinois having refused to grant to plaintiff a license to practice law in the courts of that State, on the ground that females are not eligible under the laws of that State, such a decision violates no provision of the Federal Constitution.

2. The second section of the fourth article is inapplicable, because plaintiff is a citizen of the State of whose action she complains, and that section only guarantees privileges and immunities to citizens of other States, in that State.

3. Nor is the right to practice law in the State courts a privilege or immunity of a citizen of the United States, within the meaning of the first section of the XIV. Article of Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

4. The power of a State to prescribe the qualifications for admission to the bar of its own courts is unaffected by the XIV. Amendment, and this court can not inquire into the reasonableness or propriety of the rules it may prescribe.

Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the Court.

The plaintiff in error, residing in the State of Illinois, made application to the judges of the Supreme Court of that State for a license to practice law. She accompanied her petition with the usual certificate from an inferior court of her good character, and that on due examination she had been found to possess the requisite qualifications. Pending this application she also filed an affidavit, to the effect "that she was born in the State of Vermont; that she was (had been) a citizen of that State; that she is now a citizen of the United States, and has been for many years past a resident of the city of Chicago, in the State of Illinois." And with this affidavit she also filed a paper claiming that, under the foregoing facts, she was entitled to the license prayed for by virtue of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, and of the XIV. Article of Amendment of that instrument.

The statute of Illinois on this subject enacts that no person shall be permitted to practice as an attorney or counselor-at-law, or to commence, conduct, or defend any action, suit, or plaint, in which he is not a party concerned, in any court of record within this State, either by using or subscribing his own name or the name of any other person, without having previously obtained a license for that purpose from some two of the justices of the Supreme Court, which license shall constitute the person receiving the same an attorney and counselor-at-law, and shall authorize him to appear in all the courts of record within this State, and there to practice as an attorney and counselor-at-law, according to the laws and customs thereof.

The Supreme Court denied the application, apparently upon the ground that it was a woman who made it. The record is not very perfect, but it may be fairly taken that the plaintiff asserted her right to a license on the grounds, among others, that she was a citizen of the United States, and that having been a citizen of Vermont at one time, she was, in the State of Illinois, entitled to any right granted to citizens of the latter State. The court having overruled these claims of right, founded on the clauses of the Federal Constitution before referred, those propositions may be considered as properly before this court.

As regards the provision of the Constitution that citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, the plaintiff in her affidavit has stated very clearly a case to which it is inapplicable. The protection designed by that clause, as has been repeatedly held, has no application to a citizen of the State whose laws are complained of. If the plaintiff was a citizen of the State of Illinois, that provision of the Constitution gave her no protection against its courts or its legislation. The plaintiff seems to have seen this difficulty, and attempts to avoid it by stating that she was born in Vermont. While she remained in Vermont that circumstance made her a citizen of that State. But she states, at the same time, that she is a citizen of the United States, and that she is now, and has been for many years past, a resident of Chicago, in the State of Illinois.

The XIV. Amendment declares that citizens of the United States are citizens of the State within which they reside; therefore plaintiff was, at the time of making her application, a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the State of Illinois. We do not here mean to say that there may not be a temporary residence in one State, with intent to return to another, which will not create citizenship in the former. But plaintiff states nothing to take her case out of the definition of citizenship of a State as defined by the first section of the XIV. Amendment.

In regard to that amendment counsel for plaintiff in this court truly says that there are certain privileges and immunities which belong to a citizen of the United States as such; otherwise it would be nonsense for the XIV. Amendment to prohibit a State from abridging them, and he proceeds to argue that admission to the bar of a State of a person who possesses the requisite learning and character is one of those which a State may not deny. In this latter proposition we are not able to concur with counsel. We agree with him that there are privileges and immunities belonging to citizens of the United States, in that relation and character, and that it is these, and these alone, which a State is forbidden to abridge. But the right to admission to practice in the courts of a State is not one of them. The right in no sense depends on citizenship of the United States. It has not, as far as we know, ever been made in any State, or in any case, to depend on citizenship at all. Certainly many prominent and distinguished lawyers have been admitted to practice, both in the State and Federal Courts, who were not citizens of the United States or of any State. But, on whatever basis this right may be placed, so far as it can have any relation to citizenship at all, it would seem that, as to the courts of a State, it would relate to citizenship of the State, and as to Federal Courts, it would relate to citizenship of the United States.

The opinion just delivered in the Slaughter-house Cases from Louisiana renders elaborate argument in the present case unnecessary; for, unless we are wholly and radically mistaken in the principles on which those cases are decided, the right to control and regulate the granting of license to practice law in the courts of a State is one of those powers which are not transferred for its protection to the Federal Government, and its exercise is in no manner governed or controlled by citizenship of the United States in the party seeking such license. It is unnecessary to repeat the argument on which the judgment in those cases is founded. It is sufficient to say they are conclusive of the present case.

The judgment of the State court is, therefore, affirmed.

D. W. MIDDLETON, C. S. C. U. S.

Mr. Justice BRADLEY gave the following: I concur in the judgment of the court in this case by which the judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois is affirmed, but not for the reasons specified in the opinion just read.

The claim of the plaintiff, who is a married woman, to be admitted to practice as an attorney and counselor-at-law, is based upon the supposed right of every person, man or woman, to engage in any lawful employment for a livelihood. The Supreme Court of Illinois denied the application on the ground that, by the common law, which is the basis of laws of Illinois, only men were admitted to the bar, and the Legislature had not made any change in this respect, but had simply provided no person should be admitted to practice as attorney or counselor without having previously obtained a license for that purpose from two justices of the Supreme Court, and that no person should receive a license without first obtaining a certificate from the court of some county of his good moral character. In other respects it was left to the discretion of the court to establish the rules by which admission to the profession should be determined. The court, however, regarded itself as bound by at least two limitations. One was that it should establish such terms of admission as would promote the proper administration of justice, and the other that it should not admit any persons, or class of persons, not intended by the Legislature to be admitted, even though not expressly excluded by statute. In view of this latter limitation the court felt compelled to deny the application of females to be admitted as members of the bar. Being contrary to the rules of the common law and the usages of Westminster Hall from time immemorial, it could not be supposed that the Legislature had intended to adopt any different rule.

The claim that, under the XIV. Amendment of the Constitution, which declares that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, the statute law of Illinois, or the common law prevailing in that State, can no longer be set up as a barrier against the right of females to pursue any lawful employment for a livelihood (the practice of law included), assumes that it is one of the privileges and immunities of women as citizens to engage in any and every profession, occupation, or employment in civil life.

It certainly can not be affirmed, as a historical fact, that this has ever been established as one of the fundamental privileges and immunities of the sex. On the contrary, the civil law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman's protector and defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say identity, of interests and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband. So firmly fixed was this sentiment in the founders of the common law that it became a maxim of that system of jurisprudence that a woman had no legal existence separate from her husband, who was regarded as her head and representative in the social state; and, notwithstanding some recent modifications of this civil status, many of the special rules of law flowing from and dependent upon this cardinal principle still exist in full force in most States. One of these is, that a married woman is incapable, without her husband's consent, of making contracts which shall be binding on her or him. This very incapacity was one circumstance which the Supreme Court of Illinois deemed important in rendering a married woman incompetent fully to perform the duties and trusts that belong to the office of an attorney and counselor.

It is true that many women are unmarried and not affected by any of the duties, complications, and incapacities arising out of the married state, but these are exceptions to the general rule. The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator. And the rules of civil society must be adapted to the general constitution of things, and can not be based upon exceptional cases.

The humane movements of modern society, which have for their object the multiplication of avenues for woman's advancement, and of occupations adapted to her condition and sex, have my heartiest concurrence. But I am not prepared to say that it is one of her fundamental rights and privileges to be admitted into every office and position, including those which require highly special qualifications and demanding special responsibilities. In the nature of things it is not every citizen of every age, sex, and condition that is qualified for every calling and position. It is the prerogative of the legislator to prescribe regulations founded on nature, reason, and experience for the due admission of qualified persons to professions and callings demanding special skill and confidence. This fairly belongs to the police power of the State; and, in my opinion, in view of the peculiar characteristics, destiny, and mission of woman, it is within the province of the Legislature to ordain what offices, positions, and callings shall be filled and discharged by men, and shall receive the benefit of those energies and responsibilities, and that decision and firmness which are presumed to predominate in the sterner sex.

For these reasons I think that the laws of Illinois now complained of are not obnoxious to the charge of abridging any of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States.

* * * * *

I concur in the opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley. FIELD, J.

D. W. MIDDLETON, C. S. C. U. S.

The result of this suit taught woman that for her civil as well as political rights she had no National protection. This was the first case under the XIV. Amendment that was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. This august body based its decision against Mrs. Bradwell on the ground of "no jurisdiction," declaring that the case rested with the Legislature of the State of Illinois. In language stripped of legal verbiage and obscurity, it decided that the civil rights of women could be extended and restricted at the caprice of any legislative body in the several States; that the methods for earning their daily bread, in the trades and professions, the use of their powers of mind and body, could be defined, permitted or denied for the citizen by State authorities.

In Norwalk, Connecticut, long known as the Gibralter of republicanism in that State, Mrs. Sarah M. T. Huntington was allowed to register by sufferance of the selectmen whose objections she overcame by a logical argument upon the constitutional provisions under the XIV. Amendment, but she was not permitted to vote (see Connecticut chapter). At the same election several ladies voted in Nyack, New York, and in Toledo, Ohio, and many unsuccessful attempts were made by others in several States of the Union.

It was on November 1st, 1872, at her quiet home in Rochester, while reading her morning paper, that Miss Anthony's eye fell on the following editorial:

Now Register? To-day and to-morrow are the only remaining opportunities. If you were not permitted to vote, you would fight for the right, undergo all privations for it, face death for it. You have it now at the cost of five minutes' time to be spent in seeking your place of registration, and having your name entered. And yet, on election day, less than a week hence, hundreds of you are likely to lose your votes because you have not thought it worth while to give the five minutes. To-day and to-morrow are your only opportunities. Register now!

She immediately threw aside her journal, and asking one of her sisters to accompany her, made her determined way to the registration office. The inspectors were young men, entirely unversed in the intricacies of constitutional law, so that when Miss Anthony expounded to them the XIV. Amendment, they were utterly incapable of answering her legal argument. After some hesitation the two Republican members of the board agreed to receive her name, while the Democratic official remained obdurate. The United States Supervisor being present strongly advised the young men against refusing to allow Miss Anthony to register. A full report of this scene appeared in the afternoon papers with varying comments; the Republican paper inclined toward a favorable view of the right of women to vote, while the Democratic paper denounced these proceedings and warned all inspectors that if they received the names of women they would be liable to prosecution under the 19th section of the enforcement act.

That if at any election for representative or delegate in the Congress of the United States, any person shall knowingly personate and vote, or attempt to vote, in the name of any other person, whether living, dead, or fictitious; or vote more than once at the same election for any candidate for the same office; or vote at a place where he may not be lawfully entitled to vote; or vote without having a lawful right to vote; or do any unlawful act to secure a right to vote, or an opportunity to vote, for himself or any other person; or by force, threats, menace, intimidation, bribery, reward or offer, or promise thereof, or otherwise unlawfully prevent any qualified voter of any State of the United States of America, or of any Territory thereof, from freely exercising the right of suffrage; or by any such means induce any voter to refuse to exercise such right; or compel or induce, by any such means or otherwise, any officer on any election in any such State or Territory to receive a vote from a person not legally qualified or entitled to vote or interfere in any manner with any officer of said elections in the discharge of his duties, shall be deemed guilty of a crime and shall for such crime be liable to prosecution in any court of the United States, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $500 or imprisonment for not exceeding three years or both at the discretion of the court.

Upon reading this article Miss Anthony hastened back to the registration office and assured the young men that she would be personally responsible for all costs growing out of any suit that might be instituted against them for having registered women. As an outgrowth of all this discussion about fifty women registered in the city, fourteen of them in Miss Anthony's own ward. As a whole, the tone of the press was so adverse that all the inspectors except those of the 8th ward were intimidated and refused to receive the votes of women on election day.

Bright and early on the morning of November 5th, Miss Anthony and six of the women presented themselves at the polling booth. The ladies went early not in order to vote often, but to avoid any disturbance which might result from so novel a scene if it were enacted when the streets had become crowded. Each of these new voters was in turn challenged, and each swore in her vote, except Rhoda De Garmo, who in true Quaker fashion refused either to "swear" or to "affirm," simply saying "I will tell the truth." Nevertheless her vote was also received.

The discussion of this action continued in the papers and on November 28th, Thanksgiving day, those fourteen offending citizens were informed that they were to be prosecuted by the United States Government, and that Commissioner Storrs wished them to call at his office. The ladies refusing to respond to this polite invitation, Marshal Keeney made the circuit to collect the rebellious forces. It was the afternoon of Thanksgiving day that Miss Anthony was summoned to her parlor to receive a visitor. As she entered she saw her guest was a tall gentleman in most irreproachable attire, nervously dandling in his gloved hands a well-brushed high hat. After some incidental remarks the visitor in a hesitating manner made known his mission. "The Commissioner wishes to arrest you" were his first words touching the object of his call. "Is this your usual method of serving a warrant," asked Miss Anthony; whereupon the Marshal summoned courage enough to serve the usual legal paper. He gallantly offered to leave his prisoner to go alone, but Miss Anthony refusing to take herself to Court, the United States official meekly escorted her to the Commissioner's office. When all the ladies had arrived, the Commissioner, after hours of waiting, announced that the Assistant District Attorney whom he had summoned to examine the culprits, was unable to reach the city that afternoon, and so the ladies were dismissed to appear the next morning.

The voters received their preliminary examination in the same small dingy office where, in the days of slavery, fugitives escaping to Canada had been examined and remanded to bondage. This historic little room is a double disgrace to the American Republic, as within its walls the rights of color and of sex have been equally trampled upon.

The fourteen women pleaded "not guilty," but the Commissioner ordered bail of $500 each for their appearance at the Albany term of the United States District Court January 21, 1873. Miss Anthony refused to give bail, and petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus. The Inspectors were also arrested, and had their final hearing the afternoon of the same day before Commissioner Ely,--Hon. John Van Voorhis their counsel--and were bound over to the Albany Term. The hearing on Miss Anthony's petition was had before Judge Hall. The decision was adverse, and bail of $1,000 demanded for her appearance at the May term at Rochester. The Grand Jury found a true bill of indictment against her, the fourteen other women, and the three Inspectors. Miss Anthony objected to giving bail, but was overruled by her counsel, Hon. Henry R. Selden, whose sense of gallantry made him feel it a disgrace to allow his client to go to jail. This was a source of deep regret to Miss Anthony, as it prevented her case going to the Supreme Court of the United States for final adjudication.

During the intermediate period between November 28, 1872, and January 21, 1873, Miss Anthony, in the eye of the law, was imprisoned, but the Marshal, though somewhat uneasy, left her free to fulfill her lyceum engagements and attend woman suffrage conventions. A singularly anomalous position for a criminal, traveling about the country as a teacher of morals to the people! Learning that in case the jury returned a verdict of guilty the judge must declare the costs of the trial against the defendants, she determined to canvass Monroe County, in order to make a verdict of "guilty" impossible. She held meetings in twenty-nine of the post-office districts, speaking on the equal rights of all citizens to the ballot. Hearing that District Attorney Crowley threatened to move her trial out of that county, she sent him word that she would then canvass the next with an army of speakers.

The court sat in Rochester May 13th, but several days passed without calling the case. Finally, it was moved by District Attorney Crowley, merely to ask its adjournment to the June United States Circuit Court at Canandaigua. Counsel protested, but without avail, and both the women and the Inspectors were again required to answer the charge and renew bail. This motion for change of venue was made on Friday, and the following Monday night Miss Anthony held her first meeting in Ontario County. In the twenty-two days before the convening of the Court she made twenty-one speeches. Matilda Joslyn Gage came to her aid, and spoke in sixteen townships, thus together making a thorough canvass of that county. Miss Anthony's speech, "Is it a crime for a United States citizen to vote," and that of Mrs. Gage, "The United States on trial, not Susan B. Anthony," were most effective in rousing general thought on the vital principles of republican government, and did much toward enlightening the possible jury in the coming trial.

The last meeting of the series was held at Canandaigua on the evening before the trial. Strong resolutions against these acts of injustice toward woman were introduced by Mrs. Gage, and unanimously indorsed by the audience. Thus the case went to trial with ample opportunity for the District Attorney and the Judge to know the opinions of the people, and for the men of Ontario to be too generally enlightened on the subject to find any twelve who could be trusted to bring in a verdict of guilty against the women for voting, or the inspectors for receiving their votes.

The following is the argument which Miss Anthony made in twenty-nine of the post office-districts of Monroe, and twenty-one of Ontario, in her canvass of those counties, prior to her trial, June 17, 1873:

FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS:--I stand before you to-night, under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted illegally at the last Presidential election. I shall endeavor this evening to prove to you that in voting, I not only committed no crime, but simply exercised my "citizen's right," guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny.

Our democratic republican government is based on the idea of the natural right of every individual member thereof to a voice and a vote in making and executing the laws. We assert the province of government to be to secure the people in the enjoyment of their inalienable rights. We throw to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights. Before governments were organized, no one denies that each individual possessed the right to protect his own life, liberty, and property. And when 100 or 1,000,000 people enter into a free government, they do not barter away their natural rights; they simply pledge themselves to protect each other in the enjoyment of them, through prescribed judicial and legislative tribunals. They agree to abandon the methods of brute force in the adjustment of their differences, and adopt those of civilization. The Declaration of Independence, the National and State Constitutions, and the organic laws of the Territories, all alike propose to protect the people in the exercise of their God-given rights. Not one of them pretends to bestow rights.

All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with 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.

Here is no shadow of government authority over rights, nor exclusion of any class from their full and equal enjoyment. Here is pronounced the rights of all men, and "consequently," as the Quaker preacher said, "of all women," to a voice in the government. And here, in this very first paragraph of the Declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for, how can "the consent of the governed" be given, if the right to vote be denied. Again:

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such forms as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Surely, the right of the whole people to vote is here clearly implied. For, however destructive to their happiness this government might become, a disfranchised class could neither alter nor abolish it, nor institute a new one, except by the old brute force method of insurrection and rebellion. One half of the people of this Nation to-day are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one. The women, dissatisfied as they are with this form of government, that enforces taxation without representation,--that compels them to obey laws to which they have never given their consent--that imprisons and hangs them without a trial by a jury of their peers--that robs them, in marriage, of the custody of their own persons, wages, and children--are this half of the people left wholly at the mercy of the other half, in direct violation of the spirit and letter of the declarations of the framers of this government, every one of which was based on the immutable principle of equal rights to all. By those declarations, kings, priests, popes, aristocrats, were all alike dethroned, and placed on a common level, politically, with the lowliest born subject or serf. By them, too, men, as such, were deprived of their divine right to rule, and placed on a political level with women. By the practice of those declarations all class and caste distinction will be abolished; and slave, serf, plebeian, wife, woman, all alike, will bound from their subject position to the proud platform of equality.

The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, 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.

It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens, but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people--women as well as men. And it is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic republican government--the ballot.

The early journals of Congress show that when the Committee reported to that body the original Articles of Confederation, the very first article which became the subject of discussion was that respecting equality of suffrage. Article 4th said:

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse between the people of the different States of this Union, the free inhabitants of each of the States (paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted), shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the free citizens of the several States.

Thus, at the very beginning, did the fathers see the necessity of the universal application of the great principle of equal rights to all--in order to produce the desired result--a harmonious union and a homogeneous people. Luther Martin, Attorney-General of Maryland, in his report to the Legislature of that State of the convention that framed the United States Constitution, said:

Those who advocated the equality of suffrage took the matter up on the original principles of government; that the reason why each individual man in forming a State government should have an equal vote, is because each individual, before he enters into government, is equally free and equally independent.

James Madison said:

Under every view of the subject, it seems indispensable that the mass of the citizens should not be without a voice in making the laws which they are to obey, and in choosing the magistrates who are to administer them.

Also,

Let it be remembered, finally, that it has ever been the pride and the boast of America that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature.

And these assertions of the framers of the United States Constitution of the equal and natural rights of all the people to a voice in the government, have been affirmed and reaffirmed by the leading statesmen of the nation, throughout the entire history of our Government.

Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, said in 1866:

I have made up my mind that the elective franchise is one of the inalienable rights meant to be secured by the Declaration of Independence.

B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, in the three days' discussion in the United States Senate in 1866, on Senator Cowan's motion to strike "male" from the District of Columbia suffrage bill, said:

Mr. President, I say here on the floor of the American Senate, I stand for universal suffrage; and as a matter of fundamental principle, do not recognize the right of society to limit it on any ground of race or sex. I will go farther, and say that I recognize the right of franchise as being intrinsically a natural right. I do not believe that society is authorized to impose any limitations upon it that do not spring out of the necessities of the social state itself.

Charles Sumner, in his brave protests against the XIV. and XV. Amendments, insisted that, so soon as by the XIII. Amendment the slaves became free men, the original powers of the United States Constitution guaranteed to them equal rights--the right to vote and to be voted for:

I do not hesitate to say that when the slaves of our country became "citizens," they took their place in the body politic as a component part of the "people," entitled to equal rights, and under the protection of these two guardian principles: First, that all just governments stand on the consent of the governed; and second, that taxation without representation is tyranny; and these rights it is the duty of Congress to guarantee as essential to the idea of a Republic.

The preamble of the Constitution of the State of New York declares:

We, the people of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, do establish this Constitution.

Here is not the slightest intimation, either of receiving freedom from the United States Constitution, or of the State conferring the blessings of liberty upon the people; and the same is true of every one of the thirty-six State Constitutions. Each and all alike declare rights God-given, and that to secure the people in the enjoyment of their inalienable rights, is their one and only object in ordaining and establishing government. And all of the State constitutions are equally emphatic in their recognition of the ballot as the means of securing the people in the enjoyment of these rights. Article 1 of the New York State Constitution says:

No member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.

And so carefully guarded is the citizen's right to vote, that the Constitution makes special mention of all who may not vote:

Laws may be passed excluding from the right of suffrage all persons who have been or may be convicted of bribery, larceny, or any infamous crime.

In naming the various employments that shall not affect the residence of voters, the 3d section of Article 2d says

That being kept at any almshouse or other asylum, at public expense, nor being confined at any public prison, shall deprive a person of his residence,

and hence his vote. Thus is the right of voting most sacredly hedged about. The only seeming permission in our constitution for the disfranchisement of women is in section 1st of Article 2d:

Every male citizen of the age of twenty-one years, etc., shall be entitled to vote.

But I insist that in view of the explicit assertions of the equal right of the whole people, both in the preamble and previous article of the constitution, this omission of the adjective "female" in the second, should not be construed into a denial; but, instead, counted as of no effect. Mark the direct prohibition:

"No member of this State shall be disfranchised, unless by the 'law of the land,' or the judgment of his peers."

"The law of the land," is the United States Constitution; and there is no provision in that document that can be fairly construed into a permission to the States to deprive any class of their citizens of their right to vote. Hence New York can get no power from that source to disfranchise one entire half of her members. Nor has "the judgment of their peers" been pronounced against women exercising their right to vote. No disfranchised person is allowed to be judge or juror--and none but disfranchised persons can be women's peers; nor has the Legislature passed laws excluding them on account of idiocy or lunacy; nor yet the courts convicted them of bribery, larceny, or any infamous crime. Clearly, then, there is no constitutional ground for the exclusion of women from the ballot-box in the State of New York. No barriers whatever stand to-day between women and the exercise of their right to vote save those of precedent and prejudice.

The clauses of the United States Constitution, cited by our opponents as giving power to the States to disfranchise any classes of citizens they shall please, are contained in sections 2d and 4th of article 1st. The second says:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States; and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.

This can not be construed into a concession to the States of the power to destroy the right to become an elector, but simply to prescribe what shall be the qualifications, such as competency of intellect, maturity of age, length of residence, that shall be deemed necessary to enable them to make an intelligent choice of candidates. If, as our opponents assert, the last clause of this section makes it the duty of the United States to protect citizens in the several States against higher or different qualifications for electors for Representatives in Congress, than for members of Assembly, then must the first clause make it equally imperative for the national government to interfere with the States, and forbid them from arbitrarily cutting off the right of one half of the people to become electors altogether. Section 4th says:

The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.

Here is conceded the power only to prescribe times, places, and manner of holding the elections; and even with these Congress may interfere, with all excepting the mere place of choosing Senators. Thus you see, there is not the slightest permission in either section for the States to discriminate against the right of any class of citizens to vote. Surely to regulate can not be to annihilate! nor to qualify to wholly deprive! And to this principle every true Democrat and Republican said amen, when applied to black men by Senator Sumner in his great speeches for EQUAL RIGHTS TO ALL from 1865 to 1869; and when, in 1871, I asked that Senator to declare the power of the United States Constitution to protect women in their right to vote--as he had done for black men--he handed me a copy of all his speeches during that reconstruction period, saying:

Miss Anthony, put "sex" where I have "race" or "color," and you have here the best and strongest argument I can make for woman. There is not a doubt but women have the constitutional right to vote, and I will never vote for a XVI. Amendment to guarantee it to them. I voted for both the XIV. and XV. under protest; would never have done it but for the pressing emergency of that hour; would have insisted that the power of the original Constitution to protect all citizens in the equal enjoyment of their rights should have been vindicated through the courts. But the newly made freedmen had neither the intelligence, wealth, nor time to wait that slow process. Women possess all these in an eminent degree; and I insist that they shall appeal to the courts, and through them establish the powers of our American magna charta, to protect every citizen of the Republic.

But, friends, when in accordance with Senator Sumner's counsel, I went to the ballot-box, last November, and exercised my citizen's right to vote, the courts did not wait for me to appeal to them--they appealed to me, and indicted me on the charge of having voted illegally. Senator Sumner, putting sex where he did color, would have said:

Qualifications can not be in their nature permanent or insurmountable. Sex can not be a qualification any more than size, race, color, or previous condition of servitude. A permanent or insurmountable qualification is equivalent to a deprivation of the suffrage. In other words, it is the tyranny of taxation without representation, against which our revolutionary mothers, as well as fathers, rebelled.

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. 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; the most hateful ever established on the face of the globe. An oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor; an oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant; or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but surely this oligarchy of sex, which makes the men of every household sovereigns, masters; the women subjects, slaves; carrying dissension, rebellion into every home of the Nation, can not be endured. And yet this odious aristocracy exists in the face of