Ooopsies! They thought it was a suffrage case, too.
Ooopsies! They thought it was a suffrage case, too.
lolz. Let me know when you have a cogent point to make.
That review was correct, the 14th Amendment did not give Women the right to vote, and Minor v. Happersett ALSO did not give Women the right to vote.
Via Lexis which I cannot link to, you will have to get your own subscription. Sorry about that, but its one of the reasons more people had to rely upon such resources as Jusita. Most don’t have access to it because it is darned expensive.
Minor v. Happersett 154 U.S. 116
PROCEDURAL POSTURE: Petitioner attorney sought leave to file a petition for a mandamus requiring the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia to admit her to practice law in that court, alleging that admission was denied on the basis that she was a woman.
OVERVIEW: The attorney was licensed to practice law in several states of the United States, and she sought admission to the bar of Virginia. The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia denied her application, notwithstanding that it was provided by Va. Code § 3192 that any “person” duly authorized and practicing as counsel or attorney at law in any state or territory of the United States. The attorney claimed that the denial was based on the fact that she was a woman. The attorney sought leave to file a petition for a mandamus requiring the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia to admit her to practice law in that court. The court denied leave, holding that the right to practice law in the state courts was not a privilege or immunity of a citizen of the United States and therefore that only the state had the authority to construe § 3192 and to determine whether the word “person” as therein used was confined to males, or whether women could be admitted to practice law in the commonwealth.
OUTCOME: The court denied leave to file the petition as sought by the attorney.
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http://www.thefreedictionary.com/suffrage
suf·frage
n.
1.
a. The right or privilege of voting; franchise.
enfranchisement, franchise - a statutory right or privilege granted to a person or group by a government (especially the rights of citizenship and the right to vote)
Women’s suffrage was not just about voting rights, though that is the most common point people make. It was about Women’s EQUALITY as citizens. Until the 19th Amendment, Women were legally second class citizens. Minor was deliberately pushing that envelope by attempting to get admitted to the Bar as an attorney. The case obviously failed.
I forgot to mention that you need to learn the difference between dicta and holding.
That said, this from the HOLDING of the case (Read it in detail, and read it in context.):
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=88&invol=162
“It is contended that the provisions of the constitution and laws of the State of Missouri which confine the right of suffrage and registration therefor to men, are in violation of the Constitution of the United States, and therefore void. The argument is, that as a woman, born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is a citizen of the United States and of the State in which she resides, she has the right of suffrage as one of the privileges and immunities of her citizenship, which the State cannot by its laws or constitution abridge.
There is no doubt that women may be citizens. They are persons, and by the fourteenth amendment ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ are expressly declared to be ‘citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’ But, in our opinion, it did not need this amendment to give them that position. Before its adoption the Constitution of the United States did not in terms prescribe who should be citizens of the United States or of the several States, yet there were necessarily such citizens without such provision. There cannot be a nation without a people. The very idea of a political community, such as a nation is, implies an [88 U.S. 162, 166] association of persons for the promotion of their general welfare. Each one of the persons associated becomes a member of the nation formed by the association. He owes it allegiance and is entitled to its protection. Allegiance and protection are, in this connection, reciprocal obligations. The one is a compensation for the other; allegiance for protection and protection for allegiance.
For convenience it has been found necessary to give a name to this membership. The object is to designate by a title the person and the relation he bears to the nation. For this purpose the words ‘subject,’ ‘inhabitant,’ and ‘citizen’ have been used, and the choice between them is sometimes made to depend upon the form of the government. Citizen is now more commonly employed, however, and as it has been considered better suited to the description of one living under a republican government, it was adopted by nearly all of the States upon their separation from Great Britain, and was afterwards adopted in the Articles of Confederation and in the Constitution of the United States. When used in this sense it is understood as conveying the idea of membership of a nation, and nothing more.
To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment it is necessary to ascertain what persons originally associated themselves together to form the nation, and what were afterwards admitted to membership.
Looking at the Constitution itself we find that it was ordained and established by ‘the people of the United States,’3 and then going further back, we find that these were the people of the several States that had before dissolved the political bands which connected them with Great Britain, and assumed a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth,4 and that had by Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, in which they took the name of ‘the United States of America,’ entered into a firm league of [88 U.S. 162, 167] friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attack made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever. 5
Whoever, then, was one of the people of either of these States when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, became ipso facto a citizen-a member of the nation created by its adoption. He was one of the persons associating together to form the nation, and was, consequently, one of its original citizens. As to this there has never been a doubt. Disputes have arisen as to whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time, but never as to their citizenship if they were.
Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides6 that ‘no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,’7 and that Congress shall have power ‘to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.’ Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [88 U.S. 162, 168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words ‘all children’ are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as ‘all persons,’ and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea. “