Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/656

622 ing that can not be gainsaid, held that the Legislature must have intended all the natural and logical results of the act in question; and, therefore, that the contracts of a married woman, relating to her separate estate, were as binding as if made by a feme sole. It is submitted that, for still stronger reasons, the great innovation of the XIV. Amendment should be carried to its logical conclusion, and that it sweeps away the principles of the common law, as it does the express provisions of State constitutions and statutes.

But again: Mrs. Bradwell, admitted to the bar, becomes an officer of the court, subject to its summary jurisdiction. Any malpractice or unprofessional conduct towards her client would be punishable by fine, imprisonment, or expulsion from the bar, or by all three. Her clients would, therefore, not be compelled to resort to actions at law against her. But if the courts of Illinois should refuse to exercise this summary jurisdiction, and should hold that actions at law could not be maintained on contracts between her and her clients, it might result that she would not be as generally employed as she otherwise would be. But that is no reason why she should be prohibited from appearing and trying causes for clients who are willing to rely upon her integrity and honor.

But let it not be supposed that, in trying to answer as to the inconveniences imagined by the court below, I am at all departing from the broad ground of constitutional right upon which I rest this cause. I maintain that the XIV. Amendment opens to every citizen of the United States, male or female, black or white, married or single, the honorable professions as well as the servile employments of life; and that no citizen can be excluded from any one of them. Intelligence, integrity, and honor are the only qualifications that can be prescribed as conditions precedent to an entry upon any honorable pursuit or profitable avocation, and all the privileges and immunities which I vindicate to a colored citizen, I vindicate to our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters. The inequalities of sex will undoubtedly have their influence, and be considered by every client desiring to employ counsel.

There may be cases in which a client's rights can only be rescued by an exercise of the rough qualities possessed by men. There are many cases in which the telling sympathy and the silver voice of woman would accomplish more than the severity and sternness of man could achieve. Of a bar composed of men and women of equal integrity and learning, women might be more or less frequently retained, as the taste or judgment of clients might dictate. But the broad shield of the Constitution is over them all, and protects each in that measure of success which his or her individual merits may secure.

1. The Supreme Court of Illinois having refused to grant to plaintiff a license to practice law in the courts of that State, on the ground that females are not eligible under the laws of that State, such a decision violates no provision of the Federal Constitution.

2. The second section of the fourth article is inapplicable, because plaintiff is a citizen of the State of whose action she complains, and that section only guarantees privileges and immunities to citizens of other States, in that State.