Ellen D. Katz, University of Michigan Law School, has posted Minor v. Happersett and the Repudiation of Universal Suffrage:
Minor v. Happersett rejected a constitutional challenge to a Missouri law that excluded women from the electorate. Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment forty-five years later is often said to have “overturned” Minor. In fact, the Amendment did no such thing. Minor held that voting is not among the privileges of citizenship protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Nineteenth Amendment says nothing to the contrary, and instead bars laws that deny or abridge the right to vote “on account of sex.” Minor remains good law today. As part of a symposium marking the 150th anniversary of Minor, this Article describes and contrasts the theory of political participation Virginia Minor advanced and the Supreme Court rejected in 1875 with the one that propelled ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. It shows that leading advocates of the Amendment all but repudiated Minor’s vision.
--Dan Ernst
