Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/171

Rh and received the signature of President Hayes. Senators McDonald, Hoar and Sargent made the principal speeches. We give Mr. Hoar's speech in full because of its terse and vigorous presentation of the fact that congress is a body superior to the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Hoar said:

Mr. President—I understand the brief statement which was made, I think, during this last session by the majority of the Judiciary Committee in support of their opposition to this bill, did not disclose that the majority of that committee were opposed to permitting women to engage in the practice of law or to be admitted to practice it in the Supreme Court of the United States, but the point they made, was that the legislation of the United States left to the Supreme Court the power of determining by rule who should be admitted to practice before that tribunal, and that we ought not by legislation to undertake to interfere with its rules. Now, with the greatest respect for that tribunal, I conceive that the law-making and not the law-expounding power in this government ought to determine the question what class of citizens shall be clothed with the office of the advocate. I believe that leaving to the Supreme Court by rule to determine the qualifications or disqualifications of attorneys and counselors in that court is an exception to the nearly uniform policy of the States of the Union. Would it be tolerated if the Supreme Court undertook by rule to establish any other disqualification, any of those disqualifications which have existed in regard to holding any other office in the country? Suppose the court were of the opinion we had been too fast in relieving persons who took part in the late rebellion from their disabilities, and that it would not admit persons who had so taken part to practice before the Supreme Court; is there any doubt that congress would at once interfere? Suppose the Supreme Court were of opinion that the people of the United States had erred in the amendment which had removed the disqualification from colored persons and declined to admit such persons to practice in that court; is there any doubt that congress would interfere and would deem it a fit occasion for the exercise of the law-making power?

Now, Mr. President, this bill is not a bill merely to admit women to the privilege of engaging in a particular profession; it is a bill to secure to the citizen of the United States the right to select his counsel, and that is all. At present a case is tried and decided in the State courts of any State of this Union which may be removed to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the courts of the State, women are permitted to practice as advocates, and a woman has been the advocate under whose direction and care and advocacy the case has been won in the court below. Is it tolerable that the counsel who has attended the case from its commencement to its successful termination in the highest