To deny the right asked in this bill would be to deny to women citizens the rights guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence to be self-evident and inalienable, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"; a denial of one of the fundamental rights of a portion of the citizens of the commonwealth to acquire property in the most honorable profession of the law, thereby perpetuating an invidious distinction between male and female citizens equally amenable to the law, and having an equal interest in all of the institutions created and perpetuated by this government. The articles of confederation declare that:
The free inhabitants of each of these States—paupers and fugitives from justice excepted—shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.
Article 4 of the constitution says:
Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Wyoming, Utah, and the District of Columbia admit women to the bar. What then? Shall the second coördinate branch of the government, the judiciary, refuse to grant what it will not permit the States to deny, the privileges and immunities of citizens, and say to women-attorneys when they have followed their cases through the State courts to that tribunal beyond which there is no appeal, "You cannot come in here we are too holy," or in the words of the learned chancellor declare that:
By the uniform practice of the court from its organization to the present time, and by a fair construction of its rules, none but men are admitted to practice before it as attorneys and counselors. This is in accordance with immemorial usage in England, and the law and practice in all the States until within a recent period, and the court does not feel called upon to make a change until such a change is required by statute, or a more extended practice in the highest courts of the States.
With all due respect for this opinion, we beg leave to quote the rule for admission to the bar of that court as laid down in the rule book:
Rule No. 2.—Attorneys: It shall be requisite to the admission of attorneys or counselors to practice in this court, that they shall have been such for three years past in the Supreme Courts of the States to which they respectively belong, and that their private and professional character shall appear to be fair.
There is nothing in this rule or in the oath which follows it, either express or implied, which confines the membership of the bar of the United States Supreme Court to the male sex. Had any such term been included therein it would virtually be nullified by the first paragraph of the United States Revised Statutes, ratified by the forty-third congress, June 20, 1875, in which occur the following words:
In determining the meaning of the Revised Statutes, or of any act or resolution of congress passed subsequent to February 25, 1871, words importing the singular number may extend and be applied to several persons or things; words importing the masculine gender may be applied to females, etc., etc.
