Minor v. Happersett 1875

AuthorDaniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
Pages621-627

Page 621

Appellant: Virginia Minor

Appellee: Reese Happersett

Appellant's Claim: That Missouri violated the U.S. Constitution by refusing to let women vote.

Chief Lawyer for Appellant: Francis Minor

Chief Lawyer for Appellee: None

Justices for the Court: Joseph P. Bradley, Nathan Clifford, David Davis, Stephen Johnson Field, Ward Hunt, Samuel Freeman Miller, William Strong, Noah Haynes Swayne, Morrison Remick Waite

Justices Dissenting: None

Date of Decision: March 29, 1875

Decision: The Supreme Court said Missouri did not violate the Constitution.

Significance: With Minor, the Supreme Court said voting is not a privilege of citizenship. Women did not get the right to vote nationwide until the United States adopted the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

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The fight for women's suffrage generated many interesting and witty posters.

. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Many Americans consider the right to vote to be a privilege of citizenship. When the United States was born in 1776, however, voting was reserved almost exclusively for white men. Women and black men had to fight for the right to vote, which is called suffrage.

When the American Civil War ended in 1865, the United States ended slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment. Three years later in 1868, it adopted the Fourteenth Amendment to prevent states from giving black Americans fewer rights than white Americans received. The Fourteenth

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Amendment says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge [limit] the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States." In 1870, African American men received the right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment.

Women's Suffrage

When the United States adopted the Fourteenth Amendment, Virginia Minor was president of the Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri. At the time, Missouri's constitution said only men could vote. Minor decided to challenge the law. On October 15, 1872, Minor went to register to vote in the November 1872 presidential election. Reese Happersett, the registrar of voters, refused to register Minor because she was a woman.

With help from her husband, attorney Francis Minor, Virginia Minor filed a lawsuit against Happersett in the Circuit Court of St. Louis. Minor said Happersett violated the U.S. Constitution by refusing to register her to vote. Minor's main argument was that voting...

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