Minor v. Happersett

Notable Items:

• Originalist, textualist decision with support from history and tradition.
• Sufferage determined by the states, not the federal government.
• Sufferage not among the privileges and immunties.

Issue(s) Before the Court:

Petitioner's Claim(s):

• As a citizen of the United States, the plaintiff was entitled to any and all the 'privileges and immunities' that belong to such position however defined; and as are held, exercised, and enjoyed by other citizens of the United States.
• The elective franchise is a 'privilege' of citizenship, in the highest sense of the word.
• The denial or abridgment of this privilege, if it exist at all, must be sought only in the fundamental charter of government,—the Constitution of the United States.
• But the Constitution of the United States ... expressly declares that 'no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.'
• If follows that the provisions of the Missouri constitution and registry law before recited, are in conflict with and must yield to the paramount authority of the Constitution of the United States.

Respondent's Claim(s):

Holding(s) and Disposition:

Material Facts:

• ... on the 15th of October, 1872 ... Mrs. Virginia Minor, a native born, free, white citizen of the United States, and of the State of Missouri, over the age of twenty-one years ... applied to one Happersett, the registrar of voters, to register her as a lawful voter, which he refused to do, assigning for cause that she was not a 'male citizen of the United States,' but a woman.
• A full recounting of the facts is available below

Procedural History:

• She thereupon sued him in one of the inferior State courts of Missouri, for wilfully refusing to place her name upon the list of registered voters, by which refusal she was deprived of her right to vote.
• The registrar demurred, and the court in which the suit was brought sustained the demurrer, and gave judgment in his favor; a judgment which the Supreme Court affirmed.

Rationale

Unanimous Opinion

• There is no doubt that women may be citizens.
• The direct question is, therefore, presented whether all citizens are necessarily voters.
• This makes it proper to inquire whether suffrage was coextensive with the citizenship of the States at the time of its adoption.
• When the Federal Constitution was adopted ... we find that in no State were all citizens permitted to vote. Each State determined for itself who should have that power.
• [survey of state constitions determines that males alone were allowed to vote.]
• ... it cannot for a moment be doubted that if it had been intended to make all citizens of the United States voters, the framers of the Constitution would not have left it to implication. So important a change in the condition of citizenship as it actually existed, if intended, would have been expressly declared.
• Besides this, citizenship has not in all cases been made a condition precedent to the enjoyment of the right of suffrage. Thus, in Missouri, persons of foreign birth, who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, may under certain circumstances vote. The same provision is to be found in the constitutions of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, and Texas.
• Being unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void, we
• AFFIRM THE JUDGMENT.
• A full description of the rationale is available below

Full Recounting of Facts

• Fourteenth Amendment: 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws.'
• constitution of the State of Missouri: 'Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote.'
• ... on the 15th of October, 1872 ... Mrs. Virginia Minor, a native born, free, white citizen of the United States, and of the State of Missouri, over the age of twenty-one years ... applied to one Happersett, the registrar of voters, to register her as a lawful voter, which he refused to do, assigning for cause that she was not a 'male citizen of the United States,' but a woman.
• She thereupon sued him in one of the inferior State courts of Missouri, for wilfully refusing to place her name upon the list of registered voters, by which refusal she was deprived of her right to vote.
• The registrar demurred, and the court in which the suit was brought sustained the demurrer, and gave judgment in his favor; a judgment which the Supreme Court affirmed.
• A list of the material facts is available above

Majority Full Argument

• See Material Facts
• See Procedural History
• [Essay on Who is a Citizen]
• There is no doubt that women may be citizens.
• To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment it is necessary to ascertain what persons originally associated themselves together to form the nation, and what were afterwards admitted to membership.
• Whoever, then, was one of the people of either of these States when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, became ipso facto a citizen—a member of the nation created by its adoption.
• ... new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
• It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.
• [Privileges and Immunities]
• The amendment prohibited the State, of which she is a citizen, from abridging any of her privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States; but it did not confer citizenship on her.
• The direct question is, therefore, presented whether all citizens are necessarily voters.
• The Constitution does not define the privileges and immunities of citizens. In this case we need not determine what they are, but only whether suffrage is necessarily one of them.
• The United States has no voters in the States of its own creation. The elective officers of the United States are all elected directly or indirectly by State voters.
• The amendment did not add to the privileges and immunities of a citizen.
• It is clear, therefore, we think, that the Constitution has not added the right of suffrage to the privileges and immunities of citizenship as they existed at the time it was adopted.
• This makes it proper to inquire whether suffrage was coextensive with the citizenship of the States at the time of its adoption.
• When the Federal Constitution was adopted ... we find that in no State were all citizens permitted to vote. Each State determined for itself who should have that power.
• [survey of state constitions determines that males alone were allowed to vote.]
• ... it cannot for a moment be doubted that if it had been intended to make all citizens of the United States voters, the framers of the Constitution would not have left it to implication. So important a change in the condition of citizenship as it actually existed, if intended, would have been expressly declared.
• [Fourteeth Amendment:] But when the right to vote at any election ... is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State ....
• ... 'the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.' If suffrage is necessarily a part of citizenship, then the citizens of each State must be entitled to vote in the several States precisely as their citizens are. [no residency requirement at that time? how to fulfill residency requirement in multiple states?]
• Women and children are, as we have seen, 'persons.' They are counted in the enumeration upon which the apportionment is to be made, but if they were necessarily voters because of their citizenship unless clearly excluded, why inflict the penalty for the exclusion of males alone? Clearly, no such form of words would have been selected to express the idea here indicated if suffrage was the absolute right of all citizens.
• If suffrage was one of these privileges or immunities, why amend the Constitution to prevent its being denied on account of race, &c.? [Fifteenth Amendment]
• [Republican Form of Government]
• It is true that the United States guarantees to every State a republican form of government.
• The guaranty necessarily implies a duty on the part of the States themselves to provide such a government.
• They [state governments] were accepted precisely as they were, and it is, therefore, to be presumed that they were such as it was the duty of the States to provide.
• Under these circumstances it is certainly now too late to contend that a government is not republican, within the meaning of this guaranty in the Constitution, because women are not made voters.
• [Subsequent History]
• But we have already sufficiently considered the proof found upon the inside of the Constitution. That upon the outside is equally effective.
• Vermont was the first new State admitted to the Union, and it came in under a constitution which conferred the right of suffrage only upon men ....
• The next year, 1792, Kentucky followed with a constitution confining the right of suffrage to free male citizens ....
• Then followed Tennessee, in 1796, with voters of freemen ....
• No new State has ever been admitted to the Union which has conferred the right of suffrage upon women, and this has never been considered a valid objection to her admission.
• Besides this, citizenship has not in all cases been made a condition precedent to the enjoyment of the right of suffrage. Thus, in Missouri, persons of foreign birth, who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, may under certain circumstances vote. The same provision is to be found in the constitutions of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, and Texas.
• For nearly ninety years the people have acted upon the idea that the Constitution, when it conferred citizenship, did not necessarily confer the right of suffrage.
• Being unanimously of the opinion that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the constitutions and laws of the several States which commit that important trust to men alone are not necessarily void, we
• AFFIRM THE JUDGMENT.
• The core of the rationale is available above