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offered. (Ex parte Heyfron, 7 How., Miss., 127; Fletcher vs. Daingerfield, 20 Cal., 430.) Their admission or their exclusion is not the exercise of a mere ministerial power. It is the exercise of judicial power, and has been so held in numerous cases.... The attorney and counselor being, by the solemn judicial act of the court, clothed with his office, does not hold it as a matter of grace and favor. The right which it confers upon him to appear for suitors, and to argue causes, is something more than a mere indulgence, revocable at the pleasure of the court, or at the command of the Legislature. It is a right of which he can only be deprived by the judgment of the court, for moral or professional delinquency. The Legislature may undoubtedly prescribe qualifications for the office, to which he must conform, as it may, where it has exclusive jurisdiction, prescribe qualifications for the pursuit of the ordinary avocations of life.

It is now well settled that the courts, in admitting attorneys to, and in expelling them from, the bar, act judicially, and that such proceedings are subject to review on writ of error or appeal, as the case may be. (Ex parte Cooper, 22 N. Y., 67. Strother vs. Missouri, 1 Mo., 605. Ex parte Secomb, 19 How., 9. Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall., 378.)

From these cases the conclusion is irresistible, that the profession of the law, like the clerical profession and that of medicine, is an avocation open to every citizen of the United States. And while the Legislature may prescribe qualifications for entering upon this pursuit, they can not, under the guise of fixing qualifications, exclude a class of citizens from admission to the bar. The Legislature may say at what age candidates shall be admitted; may elevate or depress the standard of learning required. But a qualification, to which a whole class of citizens never can attain, is not a regulation of admission to the bar, but is, as to such citizens, a prohibition. For instance, a State Legislature could not, in enumerating the qualifications, require the candidate to be a white citizen. This would be the exclusion of all colored citizens, without regard to age, character, or learning. Such an act would abridge the rights of all colored citizens, by denying them admission into one of the avocations which this court has declared is alike open to every one. I presume it will be admitted that such an act would be void. I am certain this court would declare it void. And I challenge the most astute mind to draw any distinction between such an act and a custom, usage, or law of a State, which denies this privilege to all female citizens without regard to age, character, or learning. If the Legislature may, under pretense of fixing qualifications, declare that no female citizen shall be permitted to practice law, they may as well declare that no colored citizen shall practice law. It should be borne in mind that the only provision in the Constitution of the United States which secures to colored male citizens the privilege of admission to the bar, or the pursuit of the other ordinary avocations of life, is that provision that

If this provision does not open all the professions, all the avocations, all the methods by which a man may pursue happiness, to the colored as well as the white man, then the Legislatures of the States may exclude colored men from all the honorable pursuits of life, and compel them to support their existence in a condition of servitude. And if this provision does protect the colored citizen, then it protects every citizen, black or white, male or female. Why may a colored citizen buy, hold, and sell land in any State of the