ccomplished
gentleman and able lawyer, suggested this article, and it was
presented and championed by Hon. F. L. Claiborne[519] of Pointe
Coupee. The women of Louisiana have never realized any advantage
from this law. All school offices are filled by appointment of
the governor, and there was no serious agitation for the
enforcement of this clause in the new constitution until the
autumn of 1885, when, in response to the demand that women should
be appointed on the school-board of New Orleans, Gov. McEnery,
through a correspondent of the _Times-Democrat_, gave his opinion
as follows:

If a married woman occupied an office under the school laws,
in which it was necessary to bring a suit to enforce some
right connected with it, she would have to get the consent
of her husband to bring the suit and join him with her.
There are only a few exceptional cases where the married
woman can legally act independently of her husband. Our code
so recognizes the paramount control of the husband that when
a widow, who is the tutor of her minor children, wishes to
marry, and gets the consent of a family meeting to be
retained in the tutorship, the code, article 255, says: Her
second husband becomes of necessity the co-tutor, and, for
the administration of the property subsequently to his
marriage, becomes bound _in solido_ with his wife. And so it
would be in the appointment of a married woman to a public
office. Her husband, of necessity, would share it with her;
would, in fact, be the officer. And as to unmarried women,
Article 232 does not repeal any of their disabilities. It
does not repeal the laws creating the essential differences
between men and women. It, as I stated, simply asserts a
right, and is inoperative until there is legislation to
enforce it.

The _Daily Picayune_ of November 16, under the head lines of
"Women as Members of School Boards," "The Law and the Facts in
the Case Presented by Mrs. Merrick," gives the following:

Last Thursday evening, November 12, a special meeting or
reception was held by the women's club at their rooms on
Baronne street. On this occasion the club was addressed by
Mrs. Caroline