Western appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1885-18??, 1885-06-27
FEMALE LAWYERS.

The question whether women should
be admitted to practice law in the courts
of Oregon was recently considered by
the Supreme Court of that state, and,
under the law as n ow existing there,
was answered in the negative. Similar
decisions have. within few years, been
rendered i'll several other states. The
general rule, under state authority, is to
exclude women from the legal profess
sion, simply because they are women,
without any reference to their qualifica-
tons, to practice law as means of liveli-
hood. Their sex has been deemed the
decisive objection. The result is that
the practice of law has been, and, with
comparatively few exceptions, still is,
the exclusive monopoly Of the male sex
in this country. This monopoly, in the
absence of special statutes otherwise
regulating the subject, is based on the
common law of England, which has al
ways been stern an d rigid in excluding
womc..s from the legal profession.
The Supreme Court of Illinois, some
years ago, refused to grant the applica-
ton of Mrs. Myra Bradwell, the present
learned and able editor of the Chicago
Legal News, to practice law in the
courts of that state, basing the refusal
solely on the fact t hat the applicant was
a woman, and SO co nstruing the laws of
that state as to exclude women from the
bar. Mrs. Bradwell carried the case,
by writ of error, to the Supreme Court
Of the United States, claiming that the
decision was in violation of her rights as
secured by the Ecu rteenth Amendment
to the Federal Constitution and, in
Bradwell ". The State. l6 Wall, 100, the
court passed judgem ent upon this speci-
ficquestion. Mr.. ] Justice Miller, in stat
ing the opinion Of the court, took the
ground that the power Of a state to
prescribe the qualifications for admis-
sion to the bar of it's own courts is unaf-
fected by the Fourteenth Amendment,
and that the Supre me Court could not
inquire into the reasonableness or pro-
priety of the rules it may prescribe. The
right to practice law in the courts ofthe
state is not, as he said, one of those
privileges or immunities of citizens of
the United States which the states, by
the amendment, are forbidden to alb
ridge; and the q question, as to state
courts, was by the Federal Constitution
left to be regulated by state authority.
The Supreme Court of the United
States having so interpreted it's second
rule as to exclude women from the prac-
tice Of law in that court, Congress, by
the act of February 18th, 1879 GO U. S.
Stat. at Large, 1922, provided that "any
woman who shall have been member
ofthe bar of the highest court of any
state or territory, or Of the Supreme
Court of the District of Columbia for the
space of three years, and shall have
maintained good standing before such
court, and who shall be a person Of good
moral character, shall, on motion and
the production of such record, be ad-
mitted to practice before the Supreme
Court of the United States" The effect
of this statute is to place women on an
equal footing with men in respect to the
right Of practicing law before the SUI
preme tribunal Of the land, and thus to
abolish all discri limitation against the
former on the mere ground Of sex. The
question of sex is wholly ignored, and
the right of wome en- to practice before
that court made to depend on other and
different considerations, 3
And if this be 3 good rule in respect to
the Supreme Court of the United States,
we confess ourselves unable to see why
the rule would not be equally good in
respect to any other court whether State
or federal. It is not at all probable that
many women would actually enter upon
the practice of law as profession if all
had the right to do so. The number Of
female lawyers would not be SO great as
to involve any possibls harm to human