Basic Information

Virginia Louisa Minor was born on March 27^th, 1824 in Goochland County, Virginia (National Park Service, 2019). She was an American women’s suffrage activist that led the fight for the enfranchisement of women based on the 14th amendment. She is most well known for her involvement in the Minor v. Happersett case, in which she sued for her right to vote.

Background Information

In her early life Virginia Minor was raised in Charlottesville, Virginia.  At the age of two her parents Warner Minor and Maria Timberlake relocated the family when the father took a supervisory position at the University of Virginia dormitories (Opdycke, 2017). Minor attended the Academy for Young Ladies in Charlottesville shortly but was otherwise educated at home (National Park Service, 2019). In 1843 she married an attorney named Francis Minor, who happened to be her distant cousin, and they had one child together (Opdycke, 2017).

Francis Minor was a lawyer as well as a graduate of the University of Virginia. They lived together in Mississippi near a large group of family members who emigrated there, later moving to St. Louis near a larger group of family members who settled there (National Parks Service, 2019). The couple bought a farm in St. Louis just prior to the Civil War. During this time Virginia Minor assisted within the hospitals in the area through the Western Sanitary Commission (National Park Service, 2019). After the Civil War ended, many women who were involved with the wartime effort began turning their attention to the issue of woman suffrage (Staley, 1983, p. 34). The Minors began a family in 1852, when Virginia gave birth to a son. He died in an accident in 1866, the very year that Minor began the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Missouri. She founded the Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri in 1867 (National Park Service, 2019).

Contributions to the First Wave

Virginia Minor’s contributions to the First wave began on May 8^th, 1867, when a group of people gathered at the St. Louis Mercantile Library to form an organization committed to attaining woman suffrage (Staley, 1983, p. 34). The Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri was the first organization in the world to have its particular aim to enfranchise women. Minor was elected the president of this association at the opening meeting on May 8, 1867 (National Park Service, 2019). In the same year, a group of suffragists including Minor petitioned the Missouri legislature in an attempt to enfranchise women. The petition containing 355 signatures was defeated. The Missouri legislature received another petition on February 20, 1868, from a group of men and women requesting that the right to suffrage be extended to the female sex. This petition was also defeated (National Park Service, 2019).

St. Louis hosted a women suffrage convention in October of 1869, suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, and Virginia Minor were in attendance (Staley, 1983, p. 34). Minor made a speech at this convention urging women to cease to submit to their current inferior position in society. Her husband Francis Minor drafted a series of resolutions proclaiming the right of women’s suffrage under the U.S. constitution. Theses resolutions were based on the phrasing of the 14^th amendment (National Park Service, 2019). It states that those who are born in the United States are citizens of the state where they reside (Staley, 1983, p. 38). They argued that under the terms of the 14^th amendment, women were already citizens of the United States, and therefore were entitled to the benefits and immunities of their citizenship. According to their argument, by law, women already had the right to vote (National Park Service, 2019).

The Minor’s set of resolutions were published in The Revolution, the newspaper of the National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA). Copies of this paper were sent to each member of congress, and thousands of copies were distributed. Many of the leaders of the suffrage movement began using the argument of the 14^th amendment, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She relied on these resolutions in her testimony before a congressional committee of the District of Columbia considering the enfranchisement of women in 1870 (National Park Service, 2019).

Many suffragists of Missouri continued to rely on appeal instead of using the 14^th amendment argument. The St. Louis County Woman Suffrage Association petitioned the House committee on the Judiciary of the forty second congress for a woman suffrage amendment in the United States Constitution in 1871 (Staley, 1983, p. 34). These petitioners argued that women were marked an inferior class by their lack of rights to vote. They claimed that this inequity labeled women with feebleness and dependence. This petition was unsuccessful. On March 4^th, 1872 the Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri presented another petition to the Missouri General Assembly. They requested that the legislature grant women the right to vote, and again, this was denied (Staley, 1983, p. 34).

On October 15, 1872, following these losses, Minor decided to attempt to register to vote, putting her legal course presented at the St. Louis convention years earlier, into action. The election district registrar Reese Happersett refused to let her register, as she expected. In December of 1872 Mr. and Mrs. Minor brought the lawsuit against Happersett to the Circuit Court of St. Louis. The petition the Minors presents mirrored the resolutions she put forth at the convention in 1869. It stated that Minor was allowed the same privileges or immunities of any citizen of the United States, including the right to vote. They argued that because various state laws prohibited her to exercise these rights, it was unconstitutional. The Petition claimed, “Missouri laws prohibiting women from voting violated the United Constitution, specifically Article IV, Section 2, granting the citizens of each state the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several states; Article VI, declaring the Constitution to be the supreme law of the land; Article V, ensuring due process under the law, And, the crux of their plea, the 14^th Amendment” (Staley, 1983, p. 34).

The Minors also filed a brief with the St. Louis Circuit Court adding additional arguments to the case. They stated that denying the women the right to vote was infringement on their freedom of speech. They stated that Missouri laws also violated the thirteenth amendment, as women without the right to vote were placed in a position of involuntary servitude. Their last action was appealing the court on the basis of natural law (Staley, 1983, p. 39).

During this case, Happersett relied upon the revision of the Missouri Constitution stating that “Every male citizen of the United States . . . shall be entitled to vote” (Staley, 1983, p. 39). His defense was that Minor had no right to vote under the current Missouri State constitution, therefore, it was his job to refuse her. The Circuit Court dismissed the Minors’ petition in February 3, 1873. The courts decided that the 14^th Amendment did not apply to Minor as she had not been a former slave and does not need the right to vote in order to protect herself from oppression (Staley, 1983, p. 39).

The Minors took this case to the United States Supreme Court. The Minor v. Happersett case was the only woman suffrage case based on the 14^th Amendment to ever reach the Supreme Court. During the brief, they began with the definitions of citizenship throughout United States history. They argued that there is no “halfway citizenship” and that women should be entitled to all the rights of citizenship or none at all (Staley, 1983, p. 40). Women received benefits and duties such as the ability to obtain passports and the duty to pay taxes. Logically, they must be allowed the right to vote. During this case, they reiterated their arguments from the lower courts and remained their main argument on their 14^th Amendment theory. They briefly investigated the enfranchisement of former male slaves, claiming that it respected African American’s right to vote as an existing fact, not a new right. The Minors brought their brief to a close with an appeal to eliminate women from the position of “involuntary servitude” where Missouri laws had placed them. They argued that instead, raise all women to a condition of self-respect and perfect freedom (Staley, 1983, p. 41).

The Court discussed the idea of citizenship and came to the conclusion that the idea of women’s citizenship had never been denied, and that the 14^th Amendment did not affect the status of women’s citizenship. This Amendment was an additional guarantee to protect rights of those who already possess them. The Courts decided that the Constitution, throughout history, did not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone (Staley, 1983, p. 41).

This chapter of woman suffrage beginning in St. Louis, Missouri was ended roughly 6 years later, after the decision on the Supreme Court in the Minor v. Happersett case. The National Women Suffrage Association ended the use of litigation, returning to its use of lobbying as a result of this loss. For the next 44 years the suffragists of Missouri continued their appeals to the general assemblies as well as the constitutional conventions before they would have the right to vote (Staley, 1983, p. 41).

 I believe that the United States Constitution gives me every right and privilege to which every other citizen is entitled . . . Failing before the Legislature, we must then turn to the Supreme Court . . . and ask it to decide what our rights as citizens, or, at least, not doing that, . . . [to] exempt us from the burden of taxation to support so unjust a Government.

~ Virginia Minor (Staley, 1983, p. 41).

Analysis and Conclusion

One of Virginia Minor’s strengths was her perseverance through her losses. She understood that for her to make an impression on the woman suffrage movement of the United States she would have to lose a few court cases in order to bring her case to the Supreme Court, and gain notoriety within the suffrage community. It takes great strength to enter a situation expecting loss, and that is what Minor did on the day she attempted to register to vote, as well as during her case at the St. Louis Circuit Court. She took these losses and persisted to fight for woman suffrage. Although it is unknown if she expected the loss at the Supreme Court, she accepted the loss and served as a role model to all suffragists of Missouri, demonstrating her commitment, sacrifice and dedication to her peers.

References

National Parks Service. (2019). Virginia Minor and Women’s Right to Vote. Retrieved October 29, 2019, from https://www.nps.gov/jeff/learn/historyculture/the-virginia-minor-case.htm.

Opdycke, S. (2017, June 16). Minor, Virginia Louise (1824-1894), suffragist and reformer: American National biography. Retrieved from https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1500482

Scholten, J.A. (photographer) & Buttre, J.C. (engraver), (1850). [Virginia Louisa Minor, head-and-shoulders- portrait, facing right] / photo by J.A. Scholten ; engd. By J.C. Buttre [photograph]. Retrieved October 29, 2019, from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b46735/

Staley, L. (1983). Suffrage Movement in St. Louis During the 1870s. Gateway Heritage: The Magazine of the Missouri Historical Society, 3(4), 34-41. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=7207e2a1-f2d3-4e46-b609-91bdb2b68a49%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=45932163&db=31h

View Of Fourth Street Looking North From Market Street. Old Courthouse Is At The Left, On The Northwest Corner Of Fourth And Market. (1890). [photograph], St. louis. Retrieved from https://mohistory.org/collections/item/resource:143805