Additional Topics
This case was the first argued before the Supreme Court regarding the Fourteenth Amendment's protection to women's citizenship rights. Still, Bradwell was unsuccessful in gaining the right to become an attorney. Myra Bradwell, editor of the Chicago Legal News, passed the Illinois law exam in August of 1869. When she applied for admission to the Illinois bar in September of 1869, she submitted the …
The court refused to admit her. The refusal was based " . . . upon the ground that you would not be bound by the obligations necessary to be assumed where the relation of attorney and client shall exist, by reason of the disability imposed by your married condition--it being assumed that you are a married woman . . . " The disability referred to was a married woman's feme covert status, which was …
The court was not persuaded. It ignored her Fourteenth Amendment argument and claimed only that she had too broadly interpreted the impact of the Act of 1869. Those recent changes in Illinois property law, the Chief Justice wrote, affected only a woman's individual and separate holdings. Their "common law . . . disabilities in regard to making contracts" had not been ameliorated to an extent that …
Bradwell appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Matthew H. Carpenter, a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, acted as her attorney. (Illinois did not send an attorney to defend its position.) He argued that Bradwell's Fourteenth Amendment rights had indeed been violated. He asked, "Can this Court say that when the Fourteenth Amendment declared `the privileges of no citizen shall be abridged,' it meant that t…
The Supreme Court ruled that Illinois was entitled to restrict the practice of law--and indeed any other profession--to men. Justice Miller, delivering the Court's opinion, said that citizenship was irrelevant to one's admission to the bar and therefore not within the province of Fourteenth Amendment protection. Justice Bradley, in his concurring opinion, offered particularly biting observations o…
Citing this material
Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.
Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.
User Comments Add a comment…