Minor v. Happersett

Voting Rights for Women Tested

Virginia Minor
Virginia Minor. Kean Collection/Getty Images
By
Jone Johnson Lewis
Jone Johnson Lewis
Women's History Writer
  • B.A., Mundelein College
  • M.Div., Meadville/Lombard Theological School
Jone Johnson Lewis is a women's history writer who has been involved with the women's movement since the late 1960s. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute.
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Updated on May 04, 2019

On October 15, 1872, Virginia Minor applied to register to vote in Missouri. The registrar, Reese Happersett, turned down the application, because the Missouri state constitution read:

Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote.

Mrs. Minor sued in Missouri state court, claiming her rights were violated on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Virginia Louisa Minor
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Virginia Minor
By Jone Johnson Lewis

After Minor lost the suit in that court, she appealed to the state Supreme Court. When the Missouri Supreme Court agreed with the registrar, Minor brought the case to the United States Supreme Court.

Fast Facts: Minor v. Happersett

  • Case Argued: Feb. 9, 1875
  • Decision Issued: March 29, 1875
  • Petitioner: Virginia Minor, a female U.S. citizen and resident of the state of Missouri
  • Respondent: Reese Happersett, St. Louis County, Missouri, registrar of voters
  • Key Questions: Under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, and the 15th Amendment's assurance that voting rights must not be "denied or abridged ... on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," did women have the right to vote?
  • Majority Decision: Justices Clifford, Swayne, Miller, Davis, Field, Strong, Bradley, Hunt, Waite
  • Dissenting: None
  • Ruling: The Court ruled that the Constitution did not grant anyone, specifically female citizens of the U.S., the right to vote.

The Supreme Court Decides

The US Supreme Court, in an 1874 unanimous opinion written by the chief justice, found:

  • women are citizens of the United States, and were even before the Fourteenth Amendment passed
  • the right of suffrage -- the right to vote -- is not a "necessary privilege and immunity" to which all citizens are entitled
  • the Fourteenth Amendment did not add the right of suffrage to citizenship privileges
  • the Fifteenth Amendment was required to be sure voting rights were not "denied or abridged ... on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" -- in other words, the amendment was not necessary if citizenship conferred voting rights
  • women's suffrage was explicitly excluded in nearly every state either in the constitution or in its legal code; no state had been excluded from joining the Union for lack of women's voting rights, including states re-entering the Union after the Civil War, with newly written constitutions
  • the US had made no objection when New Jersey explicitly withdrew women's suffrage rights in 1807
  • arguments about the need for women's suffrage were irrelevant to their decisions

Thus, Minor v. Happersett reaffirmed the exclusion of women from voting rights.

The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, in granting suffrage rights to women, overrode this decision.

Related Reading

Linda K. Kerber. No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies. Women and the Obligations of Citizenship. 1998

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Lewis, Jone Johnson. "Minor v. Happersett." ThoughtCo, Aug. 26, 2020, thoughtco.com/minor-v-happersett-case-3530494. Lewis, Jone Johnson. (2020, August 26). Minor v. Happersett. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/minor-v-happersett-case-3530494 Lewis, Jone Johnson. "Minor v. Happersett." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/minor-v-happersett-case-3530494 (accessed April 25, 2024).