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Right To Vote Is Not A ‘Privilege’ of Citizenship

1875

In Minor v. Happersett, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds a Missouri law limiting the right to vote to male citizens. The Court rejects Virginia Minor’s claim that the state law deprives her of a “privilege or immunity” of citizenship in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court reasons that the privileges and immunities clause does not create new rights, but only guarantees the rights of citizens that were recognized at the time of the Constitution’s drafting.