fied in 1870, provided that "the right of citizens of the United
States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or
by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude." Here was the entering wedge of federal interference. The
amendments did not purport to deal with woman suffrage, but the pioneers
of the suffrage movement thought they discovered in them a means of
advancing their cause and lost no time in putting the matter to the
test. Susan B. Anthony voted at Rochester, N.Y., in an election for a
representative in Congress, claiming that the restriction of voting to
males by the constitution and laws of New York was void as a violation
of the Fourteenth Amendment providing that "no state shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States." She was indicted for voting unlawfully,
and on her trial before Justice Hunt of the United States Supreme Court,
sitting at Circuit, the Court directed the jury to find a verdict of
guilty and imposed a fine of $100 and costs.[1]

[Footnote 1: _United States v. Anthony_, 11 Blatchford, 200.]

Mrs. Virginia Minor raised a similar question in the courts of Missouri.
The Missouri constitution limited the right to vote to male citizens.
Mrs. Minor applied for registration as a voter, and on being refused
brought suit against the Registrar of Voters on the ground that this
clause of the Missouri constitution was in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment. The Missouri state courts decided against her, and the case
was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States where the decision
of the state courts was affirmed.[1] The Supreme Court held in effect
that while Mrs. Minor was a citizen that fact alone did not make her a
voter; that suffrage was not coextensive with citizenship, either when
the Constitution was adopted or at the date of the Fourteenth Amendment,
and was not one of the "privileges and immunities" guaranteed by that
amendment.

[Footnote 1: _Minor v. Happersett_, 21 Wall., 162.]

A similar decision was rendered in the matter of Mrs. Myra Bradwell's
application for a license to practise law in Illinois.[1] The Supreme
Court held that the right to practise law in the state courts was not a
privilege or immunity of a citizen of the United States within the
meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, and affirmed the decision of the
Illinois Court denying Mrs. Bradwell's applic