Minor v. Happersett

21 Wall. (88 U.S.) 162 (1875), argued 9 Feb. 1875, decided 9 Mar. 1875 by vote of 9 to 0; Waite for the Court. The Supreme Court held that a state could constitutionally forbid a woman citizen to vote, despite her invocation of the citizenship and privileges and immunities clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Guarantee Clause (Art. IV, sec. 4); the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the prohibition against bills of attainder (Art. I, sec. 9). Noticeably absent from this list, to a modern eye, are the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.49

The case is important as near‐contemporary interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment's original intent. It is notable for its narrow definition of citizenship “as conveying the idea of membership of a nation, nothing more” (p. 166) and for its firm, unanimous rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment as a source either of a substantive federal suffrage right or of a federal limit on state control of the franchise. Otherwise, neither section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment nor, later, the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty‐Fourth, and Twenty‐Sixth Amendments would have been necessary. “Certainly,” the Court declared, “if the courts can consider any question settled, it is this one. … The Constitution, when it conferred citizenship, did not necessarily confer the right of suffrage” (p. 177). This interpretation was substantially, albeit tacitly, abandoned in Reynolds v. Sims (1964) and Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections (1966).2

See also Gender; Vote, Right to.

— Ward E.Y. Elliott

Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wallace 162 (1875). The Fourteenth Amendment provides in part that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." When Virginia L. Minor of Missouri was rebuffed in 1866 in her attempt to register as a voter, she maintained that the right of suffrage was a privilege of U.S. citizenship. In rejecting this contention, the Supreme Court held that the right of suffrage was not coextensive with Citizenship—that the Fourteenth Amendment did not add to the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, but merely furnished an additional guarantee for those in existence.

Bibliography

Kerber, Linda K. No Constitutional Right to be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.

Rogers, Donald W., and Christine Scriabine, eds. Voting and the Spirit of American Democracy: Essays on the History of Voting Rights in America. West Hartford, Conn.: University of Hartford, 1990; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Minor v. Happersett
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 9, 1874 Decided March 29, 1874
Full case name	Virginia Minor v. Reese Happersett
Citations	88 U.S. 162 (more) 22 L. Ed. 627; 1874 U.S. LEXIS 1354; 21 Wall. 162
Prior history	Error to the Supreme Court of Missouri
Holding
The Court held that voting is not a privilege of citizenship.
Court membership
Chief Justice Morrison Waite Associate Justices Nathan Clifford · Noah H. Swayne Samuel F. Miller · David Davis Stephen J. Field · William Strong Joseph P. Bradley · Ward Hunt
Case opinions
Majority	Waite, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV
Overruled by
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (in part)

Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), was a United States Supreme Court case appealed from the Supreme Court of Missouri concerning the Missouri law which ordained "Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote."

Virginia Minor, a leader of the women's suffrage movement in Missouri, alleged that the refusal of Reese Happersett, a Missouri state registrar, to allow her to register to vote was an infringement of her civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Contents 1 Decision 2 Subsequent History 3 See also 4 Further reading 5 External links

Decision

The Supreme Court of Missouri upheld the Missouri voting legislation saying that the limitation of suffrage to male citizens was not an infringement of Minor's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The United States Supreme Court affirmed and upheld the lower court's ruling on the basis that the Fourteenth Amendment does not add to the privileges or immunities of a citizen, and that historically "citizen" and "eligible voter" have not been synonymous. Since the United States Constitution did not provide suffrage for women, the Fourteenth Amendment did not confer that right. The court's decision had nothing to do with whether women were considered persons under the Fourteenth Amendment; the court ruled that they were clearly persons and citizens. It rested solely on the lack of provisions within the Constitution for women's suffrage.

Subsequent History

Minor has not been explicitly overruled by another U.S. Supreme Court decision. In fact, Minor is still cited for the proposition that the Constitution does not confer the right to vote. However, as the decision relates to women's suffrage in particular, it is no longer good law.

See also

• Nineteenth Amendment – Provided female citizens of the United States the right to vote.
• Women's Suffrage
• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 88

Further reading

• Basch, Norma (1992). "Reconstructing Female Citizenship: Minor v. Happersett". in Nieman, Donald G. (ed.). The Constitution, Law, and American Life: Critical Aspects of the Nineteenth-Century Experience. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. pp. 52–66. ISBN 082031403X. 
• Cushman, Clare (2001). Supreme Court Decisions and Women's Rights: Milestone to Equality. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly. pp. 7–8. ISBN 1568026145. 
• Ray, Angela G.; Richards, Cindy Koenig (2007). "Inventing Citizens, Imagining Gender Justice: The Suffrage Rhetoric of Virginia and Francis Minor". Quarterly Journal of Speech 93 (4): 375–402. doi:10.1080/00335630701449340. 

External links

• Text of Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874) is available from:  · Enfacto · Findlaw · Justia

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