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. It may have
been a radical error, and we are by no means certain it was not,
but that this was the universal belief certainly admits of no
denial. A direct participation in the affairs of government, in
even the most elementary form, namely, the right of suffrage, was
not then claimed, and has not yet been conceded, unless recently
in one of the newly-settled Territories of the West.

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 equally to men
and women.

Neither has there been any legislation since that period which
would justify us in presuming a change in the legislative
intent. Our laws to-day in regard to women, are substantially
what they have always been, except in the change wrought by the
acts of 1861 and 1869, giving to married women the right to
control their own property and earnings.

Whatever, then, may be our individual opinions as to the
admission of women to the bar, we do not deem ourselves at
liberty to exercise our power in a mode never contemplated by the
Legislature, and inconsistent with the usages of courts of the
common law from the origin of the system to the present day.

But it is not merely an immense innovation in our own usages as a
court that we are asked to make. This step, if taken by us, would
mean that in the opinion of this tribunal, every civil office in
this State may be filled by women--that it is in harmony with the