Facts
- Virginia Minor, a native-born U.S. citizen and Missouri resident over age twenty-one, sought to register to vote in St. Louis, Missouri.
- Reese Happersett, the local registrar, refused to register her because Missouri’s constitution and laws limited suffrage to “male citizens.”
- Minor sued in Missouri state court, arguing that as a U.S. citizen the Fourteenth Amendment entitled her to vote and invalidated Missouri’s sex-based voting restriction.
- The trial court sustained a demurrer and entered judgment for Happersett.
- The Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed, and Minor sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Issues
- Whether, after the Fourteenth Amendment, a woman who is a U.S. and state citizen must be treated as a voter despite a state constitution limiting suffrage to men.
- Whether the right to vote is a “privilege or immunity” of U.S. citizenship protected against state abridgment by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Decision
- The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Missouri judgment for Happersett.
- The Court accepted that women are “persons” and can be citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The Court held that the Constitution does not itself confer the right of suffrage and that the Fourteenth Amendment did not make all citizens voters.
- Missouri’s limitation of voting to male citizens was held not to violate the federal Constitution.
Legal Principles
- Citizenship and the elective franchise are distinct; U.S. citizenship does not, by itself, carry a federal constitutional right to vote.
- The Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause protects existing privileges of national citizenship; it does not create new substantive rights such as a general right of suffrage.
- Constitutional structure leaves primary authority over voter qualifications to the states, subject only to specific federal constitutional limits (such as later-enacted amendments addressing particular grounds for denial).
Conclusion
The Court ruled that women are citizens but that voting is not guaranteed as an incident of national citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment; states may restrict suffrage to male citizens absent an applicable federal constitutional prohibition.