should not be permitted to attend upon and defend the rights of that client when the case is transferred to the Supreme Court of the United States? Everybody knows, at least every lawyer of experience knows, the impossibility of transferring with justice to the interests of a client, a cause from one counsel to another. A suit is instituted under the advice of a counsel on a certain theory, a certain remedy is selected, a certain theory of the cause is the one on which it is staked. Now that must be attended to and defended by the counsel under whose advice the suit has taken its shape; the pleadings have been shaped in the courts below.
Under the present system, a citizen of any State in the Union having selected a counsel of good moral character who has practiced three years, who possesses all-sufficient professional and personal qualifications, and having had a cause brought to a successful result in the State court, is denied by the present existing and unjust rule having counsel of his choice argue the cause in the Supreme Court of the United States.
The greatest master of human manners, who read the human heart and who understood better than any man who ever lived the varieties of human character, when he desired to solve just what had puzzled the lawyers and doctors, placed a woman upon the judgment seat; and yet, under the present existing law, if Portia herself were alive, she could not defend the opinion she had given, before the Supreme Court of the United States.The press commented favorably upon this new point gained for women. We give a few extracts:
The women get into the Supreme Court in spite of the determination of the justices. They gained a decided advantage to-day in the passage by the Senate of a bill providing that any woman who shall have been a member of the highest court in any State or territory, or of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, for three years, may be admitted to the Supreme Court. The bill was called up by Senator McDonald, in antagonism to Mr. Edmunds' amendment to the constitution which was the pending order. Mr. Edmunds objected to the consideration of the bill and voted against it. There was not much discussion, the main speeches being by Mr. Sargent and Mr. Hoar.—[Special dispatch to the New York World, February 7.
A Woman's Rights Victory in the Senate.—The Lockwood bill, giving women authority to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, passed the Senate yesterday by a vote of two to one, and now it only requires the approval of Mr. Hayes to become a law. The powerful effect of persistent and industrious lobbying is manifested in the success of this bill. When it was first introduced, it is doubtful if one-fourth the members of congress would have voted for it. Some of the strong-minded women, who were interested in the bill, stuck to it, held the fort from day to day, and talked members and senators into believing it a just measure. Senator McDonald gave Mr. Edmunds a rebuff yesterday that he will not soon forget. The latter attempted to administer a rebuke to the Indiana senator for calling up a bill during the absence of the senator who had reported it. Mr. McDonald retorted that he knew the objection of the senator from Vermont was made for the purpose of defeating the bill and not, as pretended, to give an absent senator opportunity to speak upon it.—[Washington Post, February 8.
