Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-04-17
WOMAN REFUSED A LAW
LICENSE

AASENSGs
Illinois is progressive State in the mat
ter OF women's rights. Il has enacted a
law whereby a married women shall have
exclusive control of her property; may car
ryon business independent of her husband,
and sue and be sued; and it has also enacted
law authorising women to be elected to
the Office of school commissioner. But that
State has obstinately refused to allow wo-
men to practice as lawyers. Mrs. Myra
BrsdweH, of Chicago, (who Is the wife of q
lawyer of that city,) has been duly qualified
to practice law, but the Judge to whom she
made application for license Gan ungallant
fellow) refu sed her application. She then
appealed to the Supreme Court of the
State, and tie Judge of that tribunal
refused her a license. Determined to win
IL possible, she carried her case to the So
preme Court of the United states, on the
ground that under the fourteenth amend
ment, she could not be refused the right to
practice before the Illinois courts, and there
she has met with the same refusal. The
Washington correspondent Of the Cincinnati
Gazette furnishes the opinion or Justice
Miller in full, as follows:
@The plaintiff in erlor, resident in the
State of Illinois, made application to a
Judge Of the Supreme Court Of that State
for q license to practice law. She accom-
panied her petition with the usual certificate
from the inferior court Of her good charac-
ter, and that, on examinat ton, she had
been found to possess the required qualif-
cations. Pending this application she also
fled an affidavit to the effect that she was
born in the State Of Vermont; that she bad
been a citizen of that State;
that she is now citizen of
the United States, and has been for many
years q residento of Chicago, in Illinois, and
with this affidavit she also fled paper,
claiming that under the foregoing fact 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 fourteenth article of the
Amendment of said instrument. The sta
tue Of Illinois on this subject enacts that
no person shall be admitted to practice as
attorney or counselor at law, or to commence
which he is not q party concerned in any
court of record within this State, neither By
using or subscribing his own name or the
name of any other person, without previ-
ously having obtained license for that pur-
pose, from some one of the Justices of the
Supreme Court, which license shall con-
stitute the person using the same an
attorney or counselor at law and shall
nth IN in oil Or1rfc
of record within this State, and therein to
practice as attorney and counsellor 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 light to license
on the ground, among others, that she was
a citizen of the United States, and that
having been q citizen of Vermont at one
time she was in the State of Illinois entitled
TO any right granted to any citizen Of the
latter State. The court having overruled
this claim of right founded on the Federal
Contribution before referred to, the PROPOSE
tons 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 rights andimmunities of
citizens in the several States, the plaint-
ifffn Der affidavit has stated very clearly a
case TO which it is inspplicable. The pro-
lection designed by that clause, as has been
repeatedly held, has no application to a citi-.
zen of the State where the laws are COM
plsined of. If the plaintiff was q citizen of
Illinois, the provision Of the Constitution
gave her 10 protection against its courts or
the United States Legislature. The plain
tiff seems to have seen this difficulty, and
attempts TO avoid by stating that she was
born in Vermont. While she remained in
Vermont that circumstance msds her citi-
zen Of that State, but she states, at the
same time, that she Is now citizen OF the
United States. She is now, and has been
for many years past, resident OF Chicago,
in the State of Illinois. The amendment de-
Clares that citizens of the United States are
citizens of the State within which they re-
side. Therefore the plaintiff was, at the time
of making her application, a citizen OF the
United States and citizen of the State OF
illinois. We do not here mean to say that
there may not be temporary residence in
one State with intent to return to another
which will not create citizenship in the
former, but the plaintiff states nothing TO
take her case out of the definition Of citi-
Eenship of the State as defined By the first
section of the 18th amendment. In regard
TO the 14th amendment, counsel for the
plaintiff in this case truly says that there
are privileges and immunities which belong
TO a citizen of the United States as such
Otherwise it would be nonsense for the
18th amendment to prohibit the State from
abrideing them, and he proceeds to argue
that admission TO the bar of the State of
the person who possesses the requisite
learning and character is one OF those things
which the Stale may not deny. In this
later proposition we are not able to con-
cur with the counsel. We agree with
him that there ale privileges and immunl-
ties belonging 70 citizens Of the United
States in that relation and character, and
that il is these, and these alone, which
State is forbidden 10 abridge. But the
right to admittaDce TO the practice OF law 10
the courts of State is not one OF these.
This right in no sense depends on citizen
ship Of the United States. 1t has not, as
fsr as We know, ever been made in any
State or in any case to depend on citizen
ship ST all. Certainly many distinguished
LAWYERS have been admitted to practice,
both in State and federal courts, who were
10. citizens Of the United States, or of any
hat aio