Carpenter v. Cornish

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Swayze, J.

The Supreme Court held that the main contention of the plaintiff in error was untenable because women had not been authorized to vote under the constitution of 1776. Without expressing our opinion upon this point, we prefer to decide the case by a somewhat different line of reasoning. It must be conceded that the constitution of 1844 limited the right to vote for officers elective by the people to male citizens of the United States. The contention is that this limitation must be disregarded because the constitution of 184.4 was improperly…