Bradwell v. State
The Court upheld Illinois's refusal to license a woman to practice law, ruling that the right to practice law is not one of the privileges of United States citizenship protected against state interference by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Relying on its decision the same day in the Slaughter-House Cases, the Court held that states retain broad control over who may practice law within their courts, leaving the woman with no federal constitutional claim to a law license.
“But the right to admission to practice in the courts of a State is not one of them. This right in no sense depends on citizenship of the United States.”
The Court's core holding that practicing law is not a privilege of national citizenship.
How it got here: The Illinois Supreme Court denied Bradwell's application for a law license, and she brought a writ of error to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Myra Bradwell, a longtime Chicago resident who had studied law, applied for a license to practice law in Illinois. The Illinois Supreme Court denied her application, reasoning that under the common law and the state's licensing statutes, only men were understood to be eligible for admission to the bar, and the legislature had not changed that understanding.
The question before the Court
Could a state refuse to let a qualified woman practice law, even though the Constitution says citizens of the United States have certain protected privileges?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that Illinois could deny Bradwell a law license because the right to practice law is not one of the privileges or immunities of United States citizenship that the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state action. The Court also rejected her separate argument that, as a former Vermont citizen now living in Illinois, the Constitution's clause protecting citizens of other states applied to her — since she had become an Illinois citizen by residing there, that clause never applied to her claim against Illinois's own laws.
Leaning heavily on its companion decision in the Slaughter-House Cases, the Court explained that regulating who may be licensed to practice law in state courts is a power that belongs to the states themselves, not one transferred to the federal government for protection. Because admission to the bar has never depended on U.S. citizenship at all, Illinois's decision to exclude her did not violate any federal right.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
The ruling meant women (and others) denied professional licenses by state law had no recourse under the federal Constitution's privileges-and-immunities protections. For decades afterward, states remained free to bar women from law, medicine, and other professions without running afoul of federal constitutional limits, leaving such fights to state legislatures and courts.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision; the Illinois Supreme Court's denial of Bradwell's law license stands, and no further proceedings in her case followed from this ruling. The decision left questions about women's access to the professions entirely to state law, and it would take decades of state-by-state legislative and judicial change, along with later constitutional developments, before women gained broader legal rights to practice professions nationwide.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide, and Justice Bradley's separate opinion went further than the majority, whether women have any inherent right to pursue any occupation. The majority's holding rests narrowly on the scope of the Privileges and Immunities Clause, not on a broader judgment about women's proper roles, though Bradley's concurrence separately endorsed such views.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Bradley
“The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.”Bradley's separate reasoning defending the exclusion of women from the legal profession.
Justice Bradley agreed the judgment should be affirmed but rejected the majority's reasoning entirely. He argued instead that women's supposed natural differences and domestic destiny justified excluding them from professions like law, and that regulating who may practice law is part of a state's police power. He reasoned Illinois's exclusion of women did not abridge any privilege of citizenship because pursuing any profession was never a fundamental right of women as citizens.
Dissent — Unsigned
The Chief Justice dissented from the judgment and from all the opinions filed in the case, but the record does not include any stated reasoning for his dissent.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first addressed Bradwell's argument that, as a citizen of Vermont, the Constitution's clause guaranteeing citizens of each state the privileges and immunities of citizens in other states protected her. The Court explained this clause only protects a citizen of one state against the laws of another state, not against the laws of the state where she herself resides and is a citizen.
- Applying the recently ratified Fourteenth Amendment's definition of citizenship — that citizens of the United States are citizens of the state where they reside — the Court found that Bradwell, having long resided in Chicago, was herself a citizen of Illinois, so that clause gave her no protection against Illinois's own law.
- Turning to her main argument, the Court agreed that the Fourteenth Amendment protects certain privileges and immunities that belong to a person specifically as a United States citizen, which no state may abridge. But it held that the right to be admitted to practice law is not one of those national privileges.
- The Court reasoned that admission to the bar has never depended on United States citizenship in any state or federal court, noting that many prominent lawyers who were not citizens at all had been admitted to practice — showing the right could not be a privilege tied to national citizenship.
- The Court concluded, relying on its companion ruling in the Slaughter-House Cases decided the same day, that regulating who may be licensed to practice law in a state's courts is a power that remains with the states and was not transferred to federal protection by the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Because the licensing power belonged to Illinois and did not depend on federal citizenship, Illinois's exclusion of Bradwell did not abridge any privilege or immunity of United States citizenship.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Slaughter-House Cases
The Court relies on its same-day ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment protects only a narrow set of national citizenship rights, not state-regulated occupations.