The Expansion of Freedom For Women?; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony; Minor v. Happersett

"We ask justice, we ask that all civil and political rights that belong to the citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever"-Susan B. Anthony, 1876

Throughout the late 19th and the 20th centuries, women based their hope for gender equality and voting rights on the Fourteenth Amendment, a step in the right direction for the women's movement. (Wikipedia.org, 2013)

In some ways, the vague language of the "all persons" mentioned in the Fourteenth Amendment created a political dilemma for women, who rallied behind their right to vote and their "natural rights."At the time that the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, there was huge support for giving blacks citizenship, due process and equal protection, whereas the question of whether women were capable of enjoying the rights of citizenship was bitterly contested. The part in Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment that states, "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote... is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States... the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State," was the first time that Congress openly acknowledged the role of gender in voting rights (Foner, A-10, 2012.) Now, there was a penalty for denying blacks the right to vote, but what about women?

Women used the first section of the amendment to support the full citizenship rights of women. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women's suffrage supporters tried to cast ballots. In this sense, women began to use the Fourteenth Amendment to their advantage by claiming that they deserved voting rights (Archives.gov.) The Supreme Court in the 1875 case, "Minor v. Happersett," found that women born or naturalized in the United States were American citizens. In this case, the Supreme Court found that voting was not one of the "privileges and immunities of citizenship;" however, there was significant importance of the Fourteenth Amendment in the women's movement, whose leaders continued to use it as a platform and justification for their right for equal protection and voting (Supreme Court Drama: Cases That Changed America, 2001.)

Virginia Minor's brief argued, "There can be no half-way citizenship. Woman, as a citizen in the United States, is entitled to all the benefits of that position, and liable to all its obligations, or to none." (Supreme Court Drama: Cases That Changed America, 2001.)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony,  women's suffrage activists, used the Fourteenth Amendment as a constitutional platform for the women's movement (Picture Source: Wikipedia.org, 2013)

1. "Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States: Stanton and Anthony Papers Online." Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States: Stanton and Anthony Papers Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.
2. Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. A-10. Print.
3. "Minor v. Happersett 1875." Supreme Court Drama: Cases That Changed America. Ed. A Walton Litz, et al. Vol. 3: Affirmative Action/Assisted Suicide & the Right to Die/Civil Rights & Equal Protection/Gender Discrimination/Reproductive Rights/Rights of Immigrants, Gays, & the Disabled/Voting Rights. Detroit: UXL, 2001. 621-627. U.S. History in Context. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.
4. "National Archives and Records Administraton." Eyewitness. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.