the distinction of being the first woman to cast a vote under the XIV. Amendment, as the following spring she saw that her name was on the registry list, and her vote was received without opposition.
The next case was that of Nannette B. Gardner, in Detroit, Michigan. She registered her name in that city March 25, 1871, and voted,[1] unquestioned, April 3d. April 20th, of the same year, Sara Andrews Spencer and Sarah E. Webster, with seventy other women of the District of Columbia, marched in a body to the polls, but their votes were refused at the election as they had been previously refused registration. They immediately took steps to prosecute the Board of Inspectors, and suit was brought in the Supreme Court of the District at the general term, October, 1871. Albert G. Riddle and Francis Miller, able lawyers of the District, and well known advocates of woman suffrage, were retained by the plaintiffs, and in their defense made the following arguments:
To the declarations the defendants demur, and thereby raise the only questions we desire to have adjudicated. The defendants, by their demurrer, admit all the allegations of the plaintiffs, severally, but say, that as they are women, they are not entitled to vote in the District of Columbia. That the seventh section of the organic Act, the Constitution of the District, provides, "That all male citizens," etc., "shall be entitled to vote," etc., and that this word male excludes women, of course.
To this the plaintiffs reply that the language of the statute does exclude women, but they say that in the presence of the first section of the XIV. Amendment, which confers the elective franchise upon "all persons," this word "male" is as if unwritten, and that the statute, constitutionally, reads, "That all citizens shall be entitled to vote." For we contend, your honors, that although the Congress "has exclusive legislation in all cases over this Dis-
- ↑ An account of Mrs. Gardner's voting will be found in the Michigan chapter.