It is not contended, in opposition to the application, that the language of this statute is not comprehensive enough to include women, but the claim is that at the time it was passed its application to women was not thought of, while the fact that women have never been admitted as attorneys, either by the English courts or by any of the courts of this country, had established a common-law disability, which could be removed only by a statute intended to have that effect.
It is hardly necessary to consider how far the fact that women have never pursued a particular profession or occupied a particular official position, to the pursuit or occupancy of which some governmental license or authority was necessary, constitutes a common-law disability for receiving such license or authority, because here the statute is ample for removing that disability if we can construe it as applying to women; so that we come back to the question whether we are by construction to limit the application of the statute to men alone, by reason of the fact that in its original enactment its application to women was not intended by the legislators that enacted it. And upon this point we remark, in the first place, that an inquiry of this sort involves very serious difficulties. No one would doubt that a statute passed at this time in the same words would be sufficient to authorize the admission of women to the bar, because it is now a common fact and presumably in the minds of legislators, that women in different parts of the country are, and for some time have been, following the profession of law. But if we hold that the construction of the statute is to be determined by the admitted fact that its application to women was not in the minds of the legislators when it was passed, where shall we draw the line? All progress in social matters is gradual. We pass almost imperceptibly from a state of public opinion that utterly condemns some course of action to one that strongly approves it. At what point, in the history of this change, shall we regard a statute, the construction of which is to be affected by it, as passed in contemplation of it? When the statute we are now considering was passed, it probably never entered the mind of a single member of the legislature that black men would ever be seeking for admission under it. Shall we now hold that it cannot apply to black men? We know of no distinction in respect to this rule between the case of a statute and that of a constitutional provision. When our State constitution was adopted in 1818 it was provided in it that every elector should be "eligible to any office in the State," except where otherwise provided in the constitution. It is clear that the convention that framed, and probably all the people who voted to adopt the constitution, had no idea that black men would ever be electors, and contemplated only white men as within any possible application of the provision, for the same constitution provided that only white men should be electors. But now that black men are made electors, will it do to say that they are not entitled to the full rights of electors in respect to holding office, because an application of the provision to them was never thought of when it was adopted? Events that gave rise to enactments may always be considered in construing them. This is little more than the familiar rule that in construing a statute we always inquire what particular mischief it was designed to remedy. Thus, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that in construing the recent amendments of the federal constitution, although they are general in their terms, it is to be considered that they were passed with reference to the exigencies growing out of the emancipation of the slaves, and for the purpose of benefiting the blacks (Slaughter-house Cases, 16 Wall., 67; Strauder vs. West Virginia, 100 U. S. Reps., 306). But this statute was not passed for the purpose of benefiting men as distinguished from women. It grew out of no exigency caused by the relation of the sexes. Its object was wholly to secure the orderly trial of causes and the better administration of justice. Indeed, the preamble to the first statute providing for the admission of attorneys, states its object to be "for the well-ordering of proceedings and pleas at the bar."
The statute on this subject was not originally passed in its present form. The first act with regard to the admission of attorneys was that of 1708, which was as follows: "That no person, except in his own cause, shall be admitted to make any plea at the bar without being first approved by the court before whom the plea is to be made, nor
