User:Matthew Lawn/Legal arguments regarding womens suffrage in the United States


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Core issues
The debate is broadly framed by the conflict between natural law and common law

* nts: Natural law derives from the ethics branch of classical western philosophy and informs -- and is informed by -- the, social, political and legal branches. Natural law asserts that there are certain fundamental rights which are endowed by nature or the creator and, as such, are inalienable.

eg ;

The nature of citizenship and inherent rights and duties thereof

when did the state have a valid reason for curtailing citizenship status? infants, insane, criminal

Did women have a seperate function in society which limited or surplanted cit. rights vs those of men?

The common law, by contrast, is the body of thought derived from a tradition of judicial rulings and precedent.

.........as opposed to the pragmatic considerations of a man-made law such as the common law. Natural law provided a way to question the moral validity of common law traditions if they were considered unjust. This provided the foundation upon which to conduct the debate.

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Natural and legal rights are two types of rights. Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal and inalienable (they cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws). Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (they can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws).

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* nts: At Seneca Falls ; "THOMAS M'CLINTOCK read several extracts from Blackstone, in proof of woman's servitude to man"

* nts: Establishs something of a legalistic foundation for the movement. Blackstone provides a full view of coverture which, while technically only applied to married women, describes womens' social status. Here may be where common law and natural law squared off

Coverture
Directly C&Pstd from: Coverture

'a legal doctrine whereby, upon marriage, a woman's legal rights and obligations were subsumed by those of her husband, in accordance with the wife's legal status of feme covert. An unmarried woman, a feme sole, had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name. Coverture arises from the legal fiction that a husband and wife are one person.'

- From the English common law

-notably challenged in the Declaration of Sentiments issued at the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York (1848) wherein the denial of the elective franchise to women was listed as the first proof of Men's tyranny. from: Jennifer K. Brown, The Nineteenth Amendment and Women's Equality, 102 Yale L.J. (1993). Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol102/iss8/11  :

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* nts: particularly as the later defined the concept of coverture.

//Directly C&Pstd from: Coverture

"In March 1776, Abigail Adams saw an opportunity in the language of natural rights, and wrote to her husband, John Adams:

“''In the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could."''

Textual interpretation of the constitution supporting woman suffrage since ratification
In Constitutional Suffrage for Women, (1896,)...argument is made.... existed al along...essential to a democratic republic...

Is voting a right of citizenship?

Are women citizens?

the parsing of "men"; human v. male

Case law
from: Jennifer K. Brown, The Nineteenth Amendment and Women's Equality, 102 Yale L.J. (1993). Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol102/iss8/11  :

Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880) Decision at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Strauder_v._West_Virginia, was a United States Supreme Court case about racial discrimination and United States constitutional criminal procedure. Strauder was the first instance where the Supreme Court reversed a state court decision denying a defendant's motion to remove his criminal trial to federal court pursuant to Section 3 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370 (881) *Needs wikipedia page a/o text of decision (John Marshall Harlan)

- Above 2 cases notable in that they tied together right of citizenship (14th amendment) and of suffrage (15th amendment) and ruled that those two rights were relevant to jury duty, which fell outside the narrow right to vote. (all this in the case of black men, but arguments were appropriated for the debate on womens suffrage.

Minor v Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162 (1875)

==pasted from: Women's suffrage in the United States :
Goes to : late example coverture, womens citizenship and right thereto, 14th amendm; ?diff for women?

MacKenzie v. Hare[edit]

Section 3 of the Expatriation Act of 1907 provided for loss of citizenship by American women who married aliens. The Supreme Court of the United States first considered the Expatriation Act of 1907 in the 1915 case MacKenzie v. Hare. The plaintiff, a suffragist named Ethel MacKenzie, was living in California, which since 1911 had extended the franchise to women. However, she had been denied voter registration by the respondent in his capacity as a Commissioner of the San Francisco Board of Election on the grounds of her marriage to a Scottish man. MacKenzie contended that the Expatriation Act of 1907 "if intended to apply to her, is beyond the authority of Congress", as neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor any other part of the Constitution gave Congress the power to "denationalize a citizen without his concurrence". However, Justice Joseph McKenna, writing the majority opinion, stated that while "[i]t may be conceded that a change of citizenship cannot be arbitrarily imposed, that is, imposed without the concurrence of the citizen", but "[t]he law in controversy does not have that feature. It deals with a condition voluntarily entered into, with notice of the consequences." Justice James Clark McReynolds, in a concurring opinion, stated that the case should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

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Constitutional arguments
* nts: certain of the legal arguments for womens suffrage were grounded in the fourteenth amendment and the fifteenth amendment to the United States constitution:

14 - citizenship

15 - vote

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[PDF] yale.edu

The Nineteenth Amendment and Women's Equality
JK Brown - The Yale Law Journal, 1993 - JSTOR

Cited by 62 Related articles All 3 versions

Recommended Citation

Jennifer K. Brown, The Nineteenth Amendment and Women's Equality, 102 Yale L.J. (1993). Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol102/iss8/11

Local copy:

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