Bradwell v.

Illinois
CitationBradwell v. Illinois C. G. R. Co., 562 F.2d 561, 1977 U.S. App. LEXIS 11524 (8th Cir.
Iowa Sept. 19, 1977)

Brief Fact Summary. Mrs. Myra Bradwell brought suit challenging Illinois denial of her
right to practice law under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Synopsis of Rule of Law. Separate spheres ideology allowed Illinois to prohibit women

from practicing law. Women’s admission to the bar is not protected by the Fourteenth
Amendment is a matter reserved to the states.

Facts. Mrs. Myra Bradwell was denied an application to practice law in the Illinois Supreme
Court. Her petition included the requisite certificate attesting to her good character and
qualifications. The United States Supreme Court affirmed.

Issue. Does the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provide that
one of the privileges and immunities of women as citizens is to engage in any
profession?

Held. The admission to the bar is a matter reserved to the states and Bradwell’s right to
practice law is not protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Concurrence. Justice Bradley. The Illinois Supreme Court requires a certificate from

the court of some county of his good moral character, and is otherwise left to the
discretion of the court. The court found itself bound by two limitations: to promote the
proper administration of justice not to admit any class of persons not intended by the
legislature to be admitted, even though not expressly excluded by statute.
Historically the right to engage in every profession has not been one of the established
fundamental privilege and immunities of the sex. The law has always recognized a wide
difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. The harmony of
interests and views that belong to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a
woman adopting a distinct and independent career from her husband.

Historically women had no legal existence, and were incapable of making binding
contracts without her husband’s consent. This played heavily in the Supreme Court of
Illinois’ decision. The paramount destiny of women is to fulfill the noble and benign
offices of wife and mother.

Discussion. The purpose of this concurring opinion is to demonstrate a classic

statement of separate spheres ideology.

[Digest] US CASE - Bradwell vs. Illinois (1873)

Bradwell v. State of Illinois (1873)

Mr. Justice Miller

Facts: Mrs. Myra Bradwell applied for a license to practice law in Illinois.  A state statute required a license
obtained from two justices of the state supreme court to practice law. The Illinois Supreme Court denied her
admission and held that as a married woman, she would not be bound in her contracts. The state supreme
court’s opinion also held that the legislature never intended that women be admitted to the bar.

Issue: Can a qualified female citizen claim under the fourteenth amendment the privilege of practicing law?

Held: No. Judgment affirmed.

Ruling: The fourteenth amendment declares that citizens of the United States are citizens of the state where
they reside. The protection designed by that clause has no application to a citizen of the state whose laws are
complained of. If the plaintiff was a citizen of the state of Illinois, that provision of the Constitution gave her
no protection against its courts or its legislation.

There are privileges and immunities belonging to citizens of the United States, which a state is forbidden to
abridge, but the right to admission to practice in the courts of a state is not one of them. This right does not
depend on citizenship of the United States. As to the courts of a state, the right would relate to citizenship of
the state. As to federal courts, it would relate to citizenship of the United States.

The right to control and regulate the granting of license to practice law in the courts of a state is one of those
powers which are not transferred for its protection to the federal government. Its exercise is in no manner
governed or controlled by citizenship of the United States in the party seeking such license.

BRADWELL v. THE STATE.

 Supreme Court
83 U.S. 130
21 L.Ed. 442
16 Wall. 130
BRADWELL
v.
THE STATE.
December Term, 1872
IN error to the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois.
Mrs. Myra Bradwell, residing in the State of Illinois, made application to the
judges of the Supreme Court of that State for a license to practice law. She
accompanied her petition with the usual certificate from an inferior court of
her good character, and that on due examination she had been found to
possess the requisite qualifications. Pending this application she also filed an
affidavit, to the effect 'that she was born in the State of Vermont; that she
was (had been) a citizen of that State; that she is now a citizen of the United
States, and has been for many years past a resident of the city of Chicago,
in the State ofIllinois.' And with this affidavit she also filed a paper asserting
that, under the foregoing facts, she was entitled to the license prayed for by
virtue of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the
United States, and of the fourteenth article of amendment of that
instrument.
The statute of Illinois on the subject of admissions to the bar, enacts that no
person shall be permitted to practice as an attorney or counsellor-at-law, or
to commence, conduct, or defend any action, suit, or complaint, in which he
is not a party concerned, in any court of record within the State, either by
using or subscribing his own name or the name of any other person, without
having previously obtained a license for that purpose from some two of the
justices of the Supreme Court, which license shall constitute the person
receiving the same an attorney and counsellor-at-law, and shall authorize
him to appear in all the courts of record within the State, and there to
practice as an attorney and counsellor-at-law, according to the laws and
customs thereof.
On Mrs. Bradwell's application first coming before the court, the license was
refused, and it was stated as a sufficient reason that under the decisions of
the Supreme Court of Illinois, the applicant—'as a married woman would be
bound neither by her express contracts nor by those implied contracts which
it is the policy of the law to create between attorney and client.' After the
announcement of this decision, Mrs. Bradwell, admitting that she was a
married woman—though she expressed her belief that such fact did not
appear in the record—filed a printed argument in which her right to
admission, notwithstanding that fact, was earnestly and ably maintained.
The court thereupon gave an opinion in writing. Extracts are here given:
'Our statute provides that no person shall be permitted to practice as an
attorney or counsellor at law without having previously obtained a license for
that purpose from two of the justices of the Supreme Court. By the second
section of the act, it is provided that no person shall be entitled to receive a
license until he shall have obtained a certificate from the court of some
county of his good moral character, and this is the only express limitation
upon the exercise of the power thus intrusted to this court. In all other
respects it is left to our discretion to establish the rules by which admission
to this office shall be determined. But this discretion is not an arbitrary one,
and must be held subject to at least two limitations. One is, that the court
should establish such terms of admission as will promote the proper
administration of justice; the second, that it should not admit any persons or
class of persons who are not intended by the legislature to be admitted,
even though their exclusion is not expressly required by the statute.
'The substance of the last limitation is simply that this important trust
reposed in us should be exercised in conformity with the designs of the
power creating it.
'Whether, in the existing social relations between men and women, it would
promote the proper administration of justice, and the general well-being of
society, to permit women to engage in the trial of cases at the bar, is a
question opening a wide field of discussion, upon which it is not necessary
for us to enter. It is sufficient to say that, in our opinion, the other implied
limitation upon our power, to which we have above referred, must operate
to prevent our admitting women to the office of attorney at law. If we were
to admit them, we should be exercising the authority conferred upon us in a
manner which, we are fully satisfied, was never contemplated by the
legislature.
'It is to be remembered that at the time this statute was enacted we had, by
express provision, adopted the common law of England, and, with three
exceptions, the statutes of that country passed prior to the fourth year of
James the First, so far as they were applicable to our condition.
'It is to be also remembered that female attorneys at law were unknown in
England, and a proposition that a woman should enter the courts of
Westminster Hall in that capacity, or as a barrister, would have created
hardly less astonishment than one that she should ascend the bench of
bishops, or be elected to a seat in the House of Commons.
'It is to be further remembered, that when our act was passed, that school
of reform which claims for women participation in the making and
administering of the laws had not then arisen, or, if here and there a writer
had advanced such theories, they were regarded rather as abstract
speculations than as an actual basis for action.
'That God designed the sexes to occupy different spheres of action, and that
it belonged to men to make, apply, and execute the laws, was regarded as
an almost axiomatic truth.
'In view of these facts, we are certainly warranted in saying that when the
legislature gave to this court the power of granting licenses to practice law,
it was with not the slightest expectation that this privilege would be
extended to women.'
The court having thus denied the application, Mrs. Brad-well brought the
case here as within the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, or the
recent act of February 5th, 1867, amendatory thereto; the exact language of
which may be seen in the Appendix.
Mr. Matthew Hale Carpenter, for the plaintiff in error:
The question does not involve the right of a female to vote. It presents a
narrow matter:
Can a female citizen, duly qualified in respect of age, character, and
learning, claim, under the fourteenth amendment,1 the privilege of earning a
livelihood by practicing at the bar of a judicial court?
The original Constitution said:
'The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities
of citizens in the several States.'
Under this provision each State could determine for itself what the privileges
and immunities of its citizens should be. A citizen emigrating from one State
to another carried with him, not the privileges and immunities he enjoyed in
his native State, but was entitled, in the State of his adoption, to such
privileges and immunities as were enjoyed by the class of citizens to which
he belonged by the laws of such adopted State.
But the fourteenth amendment executes itself in every State of the Union.
Whatever are the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the State of New
York, such citizen, emigrating, carries them with him into any other State of
the Union. It utters the will of the United States in every State, and silences
every State constitution, usage, or law which conflicts with it. If to be
admitted to the bar, on attaining the age and learning required by law, be
one of the privileges of a white citizen in the State of New York, it is equally
the privilege of a colored citizen in that State; and if in that State, then in
any State. If no State may 'make or enforce any law' to abridge the
privileges of a citizen, it must follow that the privileges of all citizens are the
same.
Does admission to the bar belong to that class of privileges which a State
may not abridge, or that class of political rights as to which a State may
discriminate between its citizens?
It is evident that there are certain 'privileges and immunities' which belong
to a citizen of the United States as such; otherwise it would be nonsense for
the fourteenth amendment to prohibit a State from abridging them. I
concede that the right to vote is not one of those privileges. And the
question recurs whether admission to the bar, the proper qualification being
possessed, is one of the privileges which a State may not deny.
In Cummings v. Missouri,2 this court say:
'The theory upon which our political institutions rest is, that all men have
certain inalienable rights—that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness; and that in the pursuit of happiness all avocations, all honors,
all positions, are alike open to every one, and that in the protection of these
rights all are equal before the law. Any deprivation or suspension of any of
these rights for past conduct is punishment, and can be in no otherwise
defined.'
In Ex parte Garland,3 this court say:
'The profession of an attorney and counsellor is not like an office created by
an act of Congress, which depends for its continuance, its powers, and its
emoluments upon the will of its creator, and the possession of which may be
burdened with any conditions not prohibited by the Constitution. Attorneys
and counsellors are not officers of the United States; they are not elected or
appointed in the manner prescribed by the Constitution for the election and
appointment of such officers. They are officers of the court, admitted as such
by its order, upon evidence of their possessing sufficient legal learning and
fair private character. . . . The order of admission is the judgment of the
court, that the parties possess the requisite qualifications as attorneys and
counsellors, and are entitled to appear as such and conduct causes therein.
From its entry the parties become officers of the court, and are responsible
to it for professional misconduct. They hold their office during good
behavior, and can only be deprived of it for misconduct, ascertained and
declared by the judgment of the court, after opportunity to be heard has
been offered.'4
It is now settled by numerous cases,5 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.
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 cannot, 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. Yet no sound mind
can draw a 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 pretence of fixing
qualifications, declare that no female citizen shall be permitted to practice
law, it may as well declare that no colored citizen shall practice law; for 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 the provision that 'no State shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
a citizen.' And if this provision does protect the colored citizen, then it
protects every citizen, black or white, male or female.
Now, Mrs. Bradwell is a citizen of the United States, and of the State of
Illinois, residing therein; she has been judicially ascertained to be of full age,
and to possess the requisite character and learning.
Still admission to the bar was denied her, not upon the ground that she was
not a citizen; not for want of age or qualifications; not because the
profession of the law is not one of those avocations which are open to every
American citizen as matter of right, upon complying with the reasonable
regulations prescribed by the legislature; but first upon the ground that
inconvenience would result from permitting her to enjoy her legal rights in
this, to wit, that her clients might have difficulty in enforcing the contracts
they might make with her, as their attorney, because of her being a married
woman; and, finally, on the ground of her sex, merely.
Now, the argument ab inconvenienti, which might have been urged with
whatever force belongs to it, against adopting the fourteenth amendment in
the full scope of its language, is futile to resist its full and proper operation,
now that it has been adopted. But that objection is really without force; for
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. The objection arising from her
coverture was in fact abandoned, in its more full consideration of the case,
by the court itself; and the refusal put upon the fact that the statute of
Illinois, interpreted by the light of early days, could not have contemplated
the admission of any woman, though unmarried, to the bar. But whatever
the statute of Illinois meant, I maintain that the fourteenth 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 causes in
which 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.
No opposing counsel.
Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.
1
The record in this case is not very perfect, but it may be fairly taken that the
plaintiff asserted her right to a license on the grounds, among others, that
she was a citizen of the United States, and that having been a citizen of
Vermont at one time, she was, in the State of Illinois, entitled to any right
granted to citizens of the latter State.
2
The court having overruled these claims of right founded on the clauses of
the Federal Constitution before referred to, those propositions may be
considered as properly before this court.
3
As regards the provision of the Constitution that citizens of each State shall
be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several
States, the plaintiff in her affidavit has stated very clearly a case to which it
is inapplicable.
4
The protection designed by that clause, as has been repeatedly held, has no
application to a citizen of the State whose laws are complained of. If the
plaintiff was a citizen of the State of Illinois, that provision of the
Constitution gave her no protection against its courts or its legislation.
5
The plaintiff seems to have seen this difficulty, and attempts to avoid it by
stating that she was born in Vermont.
6
While she remained in Vermont that circumstance made her a citizen of that
State. But she states, at the same time, that she is a citizen of the United
States, and that she is now, and has been for many years past, a resident of
Chicago, in the State of Illinois.
7
The fourteenth amendment declares that citizens of the United States are
citizens of the State within which they reside; therefore the plaintiff was, at
the time of making her application, a citizen of the United States and a
citizen of the State of Illinois.
8
We do not here mean to say that there may not be a temporary residence in
one State, with intent to return to another, which will not create citizenship
in the former. But the plaintiff states nothing to take her case out of the
definition of citizenship of a State as defined by the first section of the
fourteenth amendment.
9
In regard to that amendment counsel for the plaintiff in this court truly says
that there are certain privileges and immunities which belong to a citizen of
the United States as such; otherwise it would be nonsense for the fourteenth
amendment to prohibit a State from abridging them, and he proceeds to
argue that admission to the bar of a State of a person who possesses the
requisite learning and character is one of those which a State may not deny.
10
In this latter proposition we are not able to concur with counsel. We agree
with him that there are privileges and immunities belonging to citizens of the
United States, in that relation and character, and that it is these and these
alone which a State is forbidden to abridge. But the right to admission to
practice in the courts of a State is not one of them. This right in no sense
depends on citizenship of the United States. It has not, as far as we know,
ever been made in any State, or in any case, to depend on citizenship at all.
Certainly many prominent and distinguished lawyers have been admitted to
practice, both in the State and Federal courts, who were not citizens of the
United States or of any State. But, on whatever basis this right may be
placed, so far as it can have any relation to citizenship at all, it would seem
that, as to the courts of a State, it would relate to citizenship of the State,
and as to Federal courts, it would relate to citizenship of the United States.
11
The opinion just delivered in the Slaughter-House Cases6 renders elaborate
argument in the present case unnecessary; for, unless we are wholly and
radically mistaken in the principles on which those cases are decided, the
right to control and regulate the granting of license to practice law in the
courts of a State is one of those powers which are not transferred for its
protection to the Federal government, and its exercise is in no manner
governed or controlled by citizenship of the United States in the party
seeking such license.
12
It is unnecessary to repeat the argument on which the judgment in those
cases is founded. It is sufficient to say they are conclusive of the present
case.
13
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.
Mr. Justice BRADLEY:
14
I concur in the judgment of the court in this case, by which the judgment of
the Supreme Court of Illinois is affirmed, but not for the reasons specified in
the opinion just read.
15
The claim of the plaintiff, who is a married woman, to be admitted to
practice as an attorney and counsellor-at-law, is based upon the supposed
right of every person, man or woman, to engage in any lawful employment
for a livelihood. The Supreme Court of Illinois denied the application on the
ground that, by the common law, which is the basis of the laws of Illinois,
only men were admitted to the bar, and the legislature had not made any
change in this respect, but had simply provided that no person should be
admitted to practice as attorney or counsellor without having previously
obtained a license for that purpose from two justices of the Supreme Court,
and that no person should receive a license without first obtaining a
certificate from the court of some county of his good moral character. In
other respects it was left to the discretion of the court to establish the rules
by which admission to the profession should be determined. The court,
however, regarded itself as bound by at least two limitations. One was that
it should establish such terms of admission as would promote the proper
administration of justice, and the other that it should not admit any persons,
or class of persons, not intended by the legislature to be admitted, even
though not expressly excluded by statute. In view of this latter limitation the
court felt compelled to deny the application of females to be admitted as
members of the bar. Being contrary to the rules of the common law and the
usages of Westminster Hall from time immemorial, it could not be supposed
that the legislature had intended to adopt any different rule.
16
The claim that, under the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution, which
declares that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, the statute law of
Illinois, or the common law prevailing in that State, can no longer be set up
as a barrier against the right of females to pursue any lawful employment
for a livelihood (the practice of law included), assumes that it is one of the
privileges and immunities of women as citizens to engage in any and every
profession, occupation, or employment in civil life.
17
It certainly cannot be affirmed, as an historical fact, that this has ever been
established as one of the fundamental privileges and immunities of the sex.
On the contrary, the civil law, as well as nature herself, has always
recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man
and woman. Man is, or should be, woman's protector and defender. The
natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex
evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of
the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as
in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly
belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to
say identity, of interest and views which belong, or should belong, to the
family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and
independent career from that of her husband. So firmly fixed was this
sentiment in the founders of the common law that it became a maxim of
that system of jurisprudence that a woman had no legal existence separate
from her husband, who was regarded as her head and representative in the
social state; and, notwithstanding some recent modifications of this civil
status, many of the special rules of law flowing from and dependent upon
this cardinal principle still exist in full force in most States. One of these is,
that a married woman is incapable, without her husband's consent, of
making contracts which shall be binding on her or him. This very incapacity
was one circumstance which the Supreme Court of Illinois deemed important
in rendering a married woman incompetent fully to perform the duties and
trusts that belong to the office of an attorney and counsellor.
18
It is true that many women are unmarried and not affected by any of the
duties, complications, and incapacities arising out of the married state, but
these are exceptions to the general rule. The paramount destiny and mission
of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This
is the law of the Creator. And the rules of civil society must be adapted to
the general constitution of things, and cannot be based upon exceptional
cases.
19
The humane movements of modern society, which have for their object the
multiplication of avenues for woman's advancement, and of occupations
adapted to her condition and sex, have my heartiest concurrence. But I am
not prepared to say that it is one of her fundamental rights and privileges to
be admitted into every office and position, including those which require
highly special qualifications and demanding special responsibilities. In the
nature of things it is not every citizen of every age, sex, and condition that is
qualified for every calling and position. It is the prerogative of the legislator
to prescribe regulations founded on nature, reason, and experience for the
due admission of qualified persons to professions and callings demanding
special skill and confidence. This fairly belongs to the police power of the
State; and, in my opinion, in view of the peculiar characteristics, destiny,
and mission of woman, it is within the province of the legislature to ordain
what offices, positions, and callings shall be filled and discharged by men,
and shall receive the benefit of those energies and responsibilities, and that
decision and firmness which are presumed to predominate in the sterner
sex.
20
For these reasons I think that the laws of Illinois now complained of are not
obnoxious to the charge of abridging any of the privileges and immunities of
citizens of the United States.
21
Mr. Justice SWAYNE and Mr. Justice FIELD concurred in the foregoing opinion
of Mr. Justice BRADLEY.
22
The CHIEF JUSTICE dissented from the judgment of the court, and from all
the opinions.
1
See the Amendment, supra, pp. 43, 44.
2
4 Wallace, 321.
3
Ib. 378.
4
Ex parte Heyfron, 7 Howard's Mississippi, 127; Fletcher v. Dainger-field, 20
California, 430.
5
Ex parte Cooper, 22 New York, 67; Strother v. Missouri, 1 Missouri, 605; Ex
parte Secomb, 19 Howard, 9; Ex parte Garland, 4 Wallace, 378.
6
Supra, p. 36.

Bradwell v. Illinois
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Bradwell v. Illinois

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued January 18, 1873

Decided April 15, 1873

Full case name Myra Bradwell v. State of Illinois

Citations 83 U.S. 130 (more)

16 Wall. 130; 21 L. Ed. 442; 1873 U.S. LEXIS 1140

Case history

Prior Application denied, sub nom., In re Bradwell,

 55 Ill. 535 (1869)

Subsequent None

Holding

Illinois constitutionally denied law licenses to women, because the

right to practice law was not one of the privileges and immunities
guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Illinois Supreme Court
affirmed.

Court membership

Chief Justice
Salmon P. Chase

Associate Justices
Nathan Clifford · Noah H. Swayne
Samuel F. Miller · David Davis
Stephen J. Field · William Strong
Joseph P. Bradley · Ward Hunt

Case opinions

Majority Miller, joined by Clifford, Davis, Strong, Hunt

Concurrence Bradley, joined by Field, Swayne

Dissent Chase

Laws applied

U.S. Const. amend. XIV

Bradwell v. State of Illinois, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 130 (1873), was a United States
Supreme Court case that solidified the narrow reading of the Privileges or Immunities
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and determined that the right to practice a
profession was not among these privileges.[1] The case is also notable for being an
early 14th Amendment challenge to sex discrimination in the United States.
 Contents

 1Background of the case

 2The Court's Decision
o 2.1Majority
o 2.2Other opinions
 3Subsequent History
 4See also
 5Notes
 6References
 7Further reading
 8External links

Background of the case[edit]

In 1869, Myra Bradwell passed the Illinois bar exam and applied for admission to
the Illinois bar in accordance with a state statute that permitted any adult of good
character and with sufficient training to be admitted to the practice of law. Because she
was a woman, however, the Illinois Supreme Court denied her admission, noting that
the "strife" of the bar would surely destroy femininity. The legal rationale was based on
the common law doctrine of coverture which denied a married woman a legal existence
apart from her husband. Bradwell appealed the decision to the United States Supreme
Court, arguing that her right to practice law was protected by the Privileges or
Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court's Decision[edit]

Majority[edit]
The Supreme Court disagreed with Bradwell. In an 8-1 ruling, it upheld the decision of
the Illinois court, ruling that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment did not include the right to practice a profession, so it was properly
regulable by the states. The majority opinion forgoes lengthy discussion of this point by
referring to the discussion of privileges and immunities in the Slaughterhouse Cases.
The majority also dismissed any claim under the privileges and immunities clause of the
unamended Constitution—Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1. Bradwell argued that because
she had been born in Vermont but later moved to Illinois, Illinois' denial of a law license
was inter-state discrimination. But the Court noted that under the recently
enacted Fourteenth Amendment, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States,
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside." Because Bradwell had been a resident of Illinois for several years,
she was now a citizen of Illinois, and the interstate provision of Article IV did not apply.
Other opinions[edit]
Although the majority opinion makes virtually no reference to Bradwell's sex and does
not decide the case on the basis of her being a woman, three justices found her sex
critical. Justice Bradley's opinion concurring in the Court's judgment posits that “[t]he
natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits
it for many of the occupations of civil life... The paramount destiny and mission of
women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of
the Creator.” 83 U. S. 130, 142. This is at odds with Bradley's dissent in
the Slaughterhouse Cases, where he had argued (with respect to men) that "the right of
any citizen to follow whatever lawful employment he chooses to adopt (submitting
himself to all lawful regulations) is one of his most valuable rights, and one which the
legislature of a State cannot invade, whether restrained by its own constitution or not."
83 U.S. 36, 114.
The sole dissenter, Chief Justice Chase, was unable to file an opinion due to
deteriorating health.[2]

Subsequent History[edit]
Because the Court limited the application of the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the
Constitution to the privileges of non-citizens in foreign United States states and because
the Court extremely limited the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment in the Slaughterhouse Cases, subsequent parties alleging discrimination
turned to the Equal Protection Clause.
In 1971, the Court would, for the first time, overturn, using the Equal Protection Clause,
a gender-based distinction in Reed v. Reed. While the Court in Reed applied only
a rational basis review to strike down a decision giving males preference to females for
administrator of estates positions, the Court would later apply intermediate
scrutiny in Craig v. Boren. Today, the Court's approach in Craig is still applied.
Myra Bradwell's case in part prompted the Illinois Legislature to adopt a statute in 1872
that forbade sex discrimination in professional licensing. Toward the end of her life, the
Illinois Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court admitted Bradwell to practice
law, nunc pro tunc, so that the year of her admittance was officially, albeit symbolically,
1869.[3]

See also