Minor v. Happersett: A Cause Ahead of its Time
Summary
Virginia Minor and her husband, Francis, led the woman suffrage movement in Missouri. Virginia organized the Missouri Woman Suffrage Association in 1867, and that same year petitioned the state legislature for woman suffrage. Francis, a lawyer, drew up resolutions claiming that the 14th Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote. Since the Constitution declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens, Minor argued, and the 14th Amendment forbade states from curtailing the privileges and immunities of citizens, women citizens were entitled to vote. By this theory, states could regulate the vote but could not deny it to anyone. After unsuccessfully attempting to gain the adoption of legislation affirming women suffrage, Francis stated that he and Virginia intended to take a test case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On October 15, 1872, Virginia attempted to register to vote. Voter Registrar Reese Happersett refused to register her on the basis of her gender, stating that the Missouri Constitution and state voter registration law did not allow her to vote. Francis filed suit on Virginia's behalf, making the same constitutional arguments he expressed in his earlier resolutions. Happersett's attorney filed a demurrer, which was sustained in January, 1873. The Minors appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court. Francis added an additional argument that the vote was not among the rights reserved to states by the 10th Amendment as the right to vote sprang out of the federal government. Happersett defended on the grounds that the 14th Amendment only granted black men the vote. The state Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's ruling, declaring that states could limit the right to vote.
Francis argued the case before the U.S. Supreme Court on February 9, 1875. The state of Missouri confident that the Court's recent decision in Bradwell v. Illinois denying women admission to the bar rendered Francis' efforts futile, neither submitted a brief nor participated in oral arguments. Francis was left to argue alone before a conservative bench that felt a need to balance federal and state power and assist in reconciling North and South. The Court had recently given the Privileges and Immunities Clause a narrow interpretation in the Slaughter House Cases, ruling that the clause only applied to the privileges and immunities of federal citizenship when the Constitution was adopted.
When Minor v. Happersett was decided, a unanimous Court concluded that the right to vote was not to be included as a privilege or immunity of federal citizenship. Voting, the Court reasoned, had been limited before without constitutional complaint, and was not explicitly given to all citizens in the Constitution. They also held that the 14th Amendment created no new privileges, that the word "male" made it clear that it only applied to men, and that the passage of the 15th Amendment to secure the right to vote for black men indicated that the 14th did not give women the vote. The decision was met with mixed reactions among women's movements and the public.
The Framers did not have women in mind when they drafted the Constitution. Nor did the 14th Amendment's authors intend to extend suffrage to women. However, the concept of federal supremacy in the Constitution required national citizenship. Federalist No. 52 expressed the founders' belief that the right to vote rested with the people and emanated from the U.S. Constitution and that states could not deny this right. Constitutional scholars now agree that the privileges and immunities clause was intended to be expandable in terms of what rights it covered, and that the vote was meant to be included. The Court's contrary reading shows the political pressure that buffeted the bench as it made its decision. The felt need to cede power to the states was irresistible.
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