The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-11-10
THE SUPREME COURT VS.. WOMEN.

THE SUPREME COURT VS.. WOMEN.
A dispatch published elsewhere in
forms us that the Chief Justice of the |
Supreme Court at Washington has an
nounced as the decision of that Court
that none but men are admitted to prac-
tice at its bar as attorneys and counsel
ors. The decision was rendered in the
case of Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, an en-
terprising and highly educated lady
lawyer of the District of Columbia, who
at infinite labor and expense has fitted
herself for the practice of law as her
chosen profession. We presume the
opinion of the erudite Chief Justice will
in due time be published at length. tits
useless, however, as it will be butarehash
of the personal "objections" dictated by
the prejudices of His Honor, interlarded
with q little angel soft talk about his
admiration of the womanly purity and
delicacy that will be tarnished by con-
tact with legal duties.
We mustered sufficient patience and
forbearance to wade through an "opin-
ion" delivered by a Wisconsin judge
upon the application last March of Miss
Lavina Goodell to practice at the bar of
the Supreme Court in that State. 1t
took this great legal light just three
months of steady incubation to- hatch
this opinion, and when it was all done
and printed, it was but the prejudices of
his great-grandfather resurrected and
placed in legal binding for the guidance
and check of ambitious, energetic, and
learned women.
The main count in the indictment
will be that "women are the mothers OF
the race" because a large majority OF
women are mothers, women who are
not must be prohibited from entering
the legal profession. If one thing is
more outrageously insulting to the
women of this nation than another, it is
the assumption of those who seek to cir
cumscribe their sphere and retard theil
progress-lest, forsoOth, they neglect
their maternal duties.
This idea that men must set mete anC
bound to the efforts of women to keeI
them in the right path and compel them
to perform the duties that every WON
ans nature leads her voluntarily to dis
charge, permeates all classes of mer
from the Chief Justice of the United
States to the hod-carrier and rag-picke
of her cities. The former winds up al
elaborate harangue upon maternal duties
with the declaration, which, unfortu
nately, judicial power renders effective
and the pompous words, "the motion
is denied" The latter, when the publ
work of any woman-and if she is child
less it makes not the slightest differ
ence in either case-is mentioned in hi
presence, dumps his mortar or lean
with an air of conscious superiorit.
upon his crook, as he calculates, "She''
better be home a-tendin' to her childer.'
Why these solictious guardians c
children never see cause for anxiet
! concerning them, unless the employ
ment of women brings honor or emOlu
ment, or both, is a little puzzling. !
woman forced to earn her own and he
children's bread, may lock them in the
cold and bare apartments and leav
them all day while she tolls at th
wash-tub or sewing machine for enOug
to feed them on the morrow, and W
hear not a word about the little ones b.
ing neglected or the mother heartlei
= and unwomanly. But if by her energ
= and ability as a lawyer or doctor 81
earns enough to leave them comforts
{ bly, housed, clad, and fed, with an a
tendant to care for them during b,
} necessary absence, "she is neglectit
her children, and ought to be at hon
:. with them"
~ After few more fossil Chief Justic
10 have recorded Dred Scott decisions al
opinions to bar the legitimate progre
, of women in law practice, these reli
= of the dark ages will have passed in
deserved oblivion, and the judicial c
mine be not longer the insignia
tyranny and injustice. God speed Z
r, day.