'My Efforts to Become a Lawyer"

MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER. 915

MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYEL z

es OM. a ehild, the bent ef my m uind has been one of extreme prac-

ticality, Phat knowledae ouly has been prize wlwhich T could im-
niatiately tam to wernt in everveday Hie. and tp the pursuit of sueh
knowledge J have been undaun ed by conventions, I have ever been

able to enter into the prepe Ueos of the centuries past, thar have had no







‘sa wwe, ner to discover that
the Hinaitation ne of Worurs sphere as leretuiors diciated by the eastonis
of sock ely Were W: arthy of serious consideration, Aly only thought was
to do those things whieh dm the nature of buman affairs seemed the
things to be done, and to o them In the best and quost expeditions
manner, Hence 1 was nat refol as to the rm

that it was ineans to an end, ‘and never der a moment stopped t 0 cone
women Were accustomed to do, but



fonndation in reason, in netare, or da pature




>
PY ol my work, 6



sider whether the labor was such
only whether Thad iliiy to perform it.

Of course, with t cndenuy of mind, T was constantly rung
into difficulties. At about ten T “Lad read the Bibl
through, but bad read it asa chic evine Jiterally all that it
contains. [supposed filth onty wae sary to the re-enactment
of the miracles of Senptice . Beleving that Thad this faith, or might
have it, with a proper disposition of ini L undertuok te perform
these miracles, and of course inglorious

My efturt at waling on water result sad wefting of any
pantal ets and sk ints | arments then worn by little ecouniy-girls of
dd somewhat chook mv


















2 ‘ minty, New Youl ‘8 an
belief in my own abilities, or else in my understanding of the wo “cd
“faith? J had selested for tis eperinient a mill-pond near my
father’s house, and, without he nhising any person of my intention, had
proceeded to the edge of the pen wd alone, and, suinnieming vp courare
-—or faith, as Eth htt pack stagk ta altate the exan iple of the
great apos stle Peter, bo hte fer, Tomy surprise
ane discomiumre, my 2 vo sands bed below 5 and,




















Ny wos
quit thro:





although J retired in ood order, it was with dag: gled skirts ‘and 2
doubting mind, to reesive a good eal dine my tmeder, Thad net

teal, and indeed had
op had 1 yet been



yet Jearnel tha the
he conception of tac nak
he that only Fiuen were enppe
bac prever ve t ese












ded on a woman’s ad, “i





was elassit] vachole human far! By ander the generic term man,
and unfortar ately hs ve been dolog so ever sinee.
Bei this caduve did not maté ‘alle Camp my hopef Iness nor my
or papper: one of mv ie haracter ist!




arder, Contin
nee T selost

tnd t
t had just

MPw next etfori




DG MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER.

accomplish the performance of my second miracle. The raising of the
dead, ag delineated in Scripture, is undoubtedly intended to be received
as literal and real. True, the raising of the dead was performed only
by our Saviour, except when the witch of Endor raised Samuel for
King Saul, but from the teachings one is led to suppose that the
prophets might have wrought the same miracles under favorable cir-
cumstances and with a faith sufficiently enlarged and strong. But the
grave did not open, the dead did not come forth, as in the case of
Lazarus; and my self-esteem received another severe shock.

I attributed these failures to a want of either sufficient undersiand-
ing or sufficient concentration, and still supposed that I should some day
be able to accomplish these miracles. I dwelt earnestly on the promise,
“Tf ye have faith even as a grain of musiard-sced, ye shall say unto
that mountain, Remove hence, and it shall be removed.” I therefore
coneluded that if an ordinary mortal could remove by his will-power a
mountain, then, child as I was, I certainly could move a bill, and so
wrought my mind up to attempt the performance of the third miracle.
Determined this time to succeed, I selected a small hill and concentrated
all my will-power upon it; but the hill did not move. By this time I
had lost some confidence in myself, but none in the efficacy of the
Scripture, and for a time I abandoned my efforts to accomplish feats so
much beyond my ability. Since that time I have learned how to re-
move a mountain, and have removed several. It has been accomplished
by will-power and mental effort, combined with indefatigable labor.

T have not raised the dead, but I have awakened the living ; and if
I have not been able to walk on water the progressive spirit of this age
may soon accomplish this feat. The general effect of attempting things
beyond us, even though we fail, is to enlarge and liberalize the mind.
With work and school I soon abandoned the miracles, but few under-
takings were so great that I did not aspire to them. Graduating in the
district school, I was soon a teacher of those who so recently had been
my associates. Here again came up the odious distinction of sex. The
male teachers in the free schools of the State of New York received
more than double the salary paid to the women teachers at that time,
simply because they were men, and for precisely the same work. It
was an indignity not to be tamely borne by one with so little discrim-
ination of the merits and demerits of sex, and of course, impolitic as it
might seem, I at once began to agitate this question, arguing that pay
should be for work, and commensurate to it, and not be based on sex.
To-day this custom is changed. ‘

An ardent. student of history, I soon discovered that most of the
great men of the country had received a collegiat education. I also
discovered that the colleges of the country were closed to women.
What could a simple country-gir! do against the prejudices of centuries?
There was only one avenue open to her, and that the one for which the
American girl had been educated all of the years of the past century,—
marriage. The daughter of a poor farmer, I followed the same well-
trodden road, and was soon united in marriage to a promising young
farmer of my neighborhood. Marriage to the ordinary woman is
the end of her personality, or of her individuality of thought and




MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER. 217

action. Forever after, she is known by her husband’s name, takes

‘his standing in society, receives only Ais friends, is represented by

him, and becomes a sort of domestic nonentity, reflecting, if anything,
her husband’s religious, moral, and political views, and rising or falling
in the world as his star shall go up or down.

* I had not even noted this phase of society, and directly adopted the
unwomanly habit of pursuing my studies after my marriage, writing
theses for literary gatherings, and sometimes for the public press.

A babe soon gladdened my houschold, but my married life was
short, as my husband sickened soon after our marriage and died of a
lingering consumption during the fifth year, leaving me, without
fortune, to make my way in the world.

Not yet twenty-three years of age, a mother and a widow, with
poor parents, with not even a liberal education as a reliance for support,
the outlook was gloomy. - Gathering together my little means, I soon
began to attend school again in a neighboring academy, in order to fit
myself for some active employment whereby I could earn a livelihood
for myself and child. Here I was reminded that “married women
were not supposed to attend school, even though widowed,”—that it
was “an unheard-of and an unusual thing!” “What did I expect to
make of myself?” and other impudent questions, were asked me; but
I kept on my course and completed the academic term. I now had the
hardihood to ask of the trustees the privilege of teaching the winter
school in my neighborhood, but was promptly told that the trustees
had determined to employ “a man” for the winter months; and so I
concluded to make my second term in the academy. The woman
teacher was not as popular in that day as she has become in this, and
was only employed by sufferance, and for the further reason that her
wages, which were then raised by a direct tax on the parents of the
pupils, were expected to be much less.

Defeats are always advantageous, if they only bend the spirit and
do not break it. This added knowledge was undoubtedly necessary to
my after-success in this same school, for the winter had only half
elapsed when I was waited upon by these same trustees, informed that
they had dismissed their male teacher, and begged by them to accept
control of the school. The wages here earned during one year and a
half made me contemplate a course in Genesee Wesleyan Seminary,
New York, then opened to young men and young women on the same
terms, and this resolve was put in force in the autumn of 1854.

To this step all my friends and advisers objected ; and I was com-
pelled to use a good deal of strategy to prevent an open rupture. But,
after much mending and turning of a scanty wardrobe, with some new
additions, my trunk was duly packed for the September term of the
school, and with two young-lady companions I undertook the journey,
then about sixty miles from home. This was my first journey, and
was to me a matter of a good deal of moment. We arrived safely,
without incident, just as the shades of night were gathering over the
seminary. My first term was devoted entirely and zealously to the
routine-work of the school. But the young men were all prepariig for
Genesee College, then connected with this seminary, and already had


















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218 MY EFFORTS T0 BECOME A LAWYER.

the liberality of the trustees of that Methodist school opened its doors
to two women. Here was an opportunity that I could not afford to
lose, and which seemed likely to gratify the ambitions of my youth.
So, without consulting my friends at home, I offered myself, at the
conclusion of the first term in the seminary, to the College Board for
examination and matriculation in the Freshman class.

The preceptress in the seminary tried to dissuade me by declaring
that in her opinion the seminary course was much more desirable and
lady-like, while the President of the college did not smile upon this at-
tempted innovation upon the time-honored prerogatives of man. Raising
-his spectacles, he gravely asked me if I expected to complete the course.
He evidently did not fully comprehend, good man as he was, the nature
of the timber of which the young woman who thea confronted him
was made. :

For the years succeeding, I devoted myself unremittingly to the
labors of the course, and graduated with honor June 27, 1857. There
was at this time no Law Department connected with the institution, or
I should undoubtedly have asked admission thereto, But a law class
was opened in the village by a young law professor, and a goodly num-
ber of college and seminary students, myself among the number, com-
menced attendance thereon. Naturally enough, the class was frowned
upon by the faculties of both seminary and college, as an intrusion
upon their rights; but this was the beginning of my study of the law.

Before my graduation, however, I had been elected, over several
competitors, preceptress of the Lockport Union School, then incorpo-
rated as an academy,—the election to take effect immediately on my
leaving the college. This position had been offered to me without
solicitation, and almost against my wishes, as I had formed other plans;
but, upon the advice of President Cummings, ] accepted it.

At the end of the first session I visited my parents in Hlinois, and
brought back with me my little daughter Lura, now six years of age,
and my youngest sister Inverno, to put them in school and have them
under my charge. The latter graduated in the school three years later,
while Lura was prepared for the senior department. Four years of
unremitting toil, of earnest work, were spent in this school, then num-
bering from six to seven hundred young men and women. As a teacher,
I did not content myself with the knowledge that I had already acquired,
but strove each day to gather up some new thoughts in each of the
branches pursued by my respective classes. I was also very active in
the Schoo] Associations, Town, County, and State, which I often en-
livened with an original essay, and almost invariably joined in the
debates that were sure to be started at each meeting, on the most ap-
proved methods of teaching.

It was at one of the meetings of the State Association that I first
met Susan B. Anthony, who, like myself, was in early life a teacher in
the public’ schools of the State of New York. It is true that avhile in
college I had slipped away one evening, without the knowledge of the
faculty, to hear Susan deliver one of her progressive lectures on the
“ wrongs of woman.” She was at this time just commencing to argue
the necessity fur the enlargement of the sphere of labor for woman,




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MY BFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER. 919

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and advocated her employment in shoe-shops, dry-goods stores, and
printing-offices, all of which seemed startling heresy to the public of
that time. To-day, with shoc-shops, dry-goods stores, and printing-
offices filled with women, and hardly an office complete without them,
we wonder why this state of affairs did not always exist, and some of
my readers doubtless think that it always did. Susan was at this time
young and handsome, with only a slight departure in dress from the
Quaker costume in which she had been reared,—not yet soured by the
rebuffs and inequalities of life, though even at this time evincing a little
bitterness in her tone, and some sarcasm in her remarks on the “tyrant
man.” . :
I met her repeatedly after this at the mectings of the School Asso-
ciation, her spirit of aggressiveness always carrying her so far ahead of
any of her competitors as to make her a marked figure, She insisted
upon the appointment of women on all committees, and urged them
to speak and to vote upon all the questions that came before the asso-
ciation,
Following out Susan’s suggestion, she and I were placed on a com-
mittee together, to determine whether it was expedient and would be
beneficial for the girls in the public schools of New York to be taught
to declaim like the boys. ‘The report was to be made at the end of the
next school quarter. With my usual practicality, I at once required
all the young women then under my charge to prepare themselves with

a declamation to be delivered in public on the Saturday of the coming

week ; and this order was continued through the quarter. The im-
provement was so marked, and the success so great, that declamation
for the girls became the standing order for the school forever after ; and
of course the report of the committee was favorable. T had lacked

this training in my early life, which as a Jawyer would have been of .

great assistance to me.

"The last year of the four of my sojourn in this school witnessed the
outbreak of the war of the rebellion. It was a severe shock to my
views of the duties and obligations of a civilized and Christian people ;
but I soon entered into the spirit of it, and, when the necessity for help
came, not only organized the young women of the school into classes
for the purpose of making clothing, bandages, and lint, but assisted
the ladies of the city to organize for work, and continned to act as
President of the Aid Society so long as I remained in Lockport.

I resigned from the Lockport Union in the summer of 1861 to take
charge of the Gainesville Female Seminary, where I remained for only
one year, the seminary building having burned in the mean time. In
the Lockport school, during the four years of my stay, T had regularly
exercised the young ladies in the gymmasium, and many of them be-
came quite expert gymnasts; but in the Gainesville school, which was
exclusively for young ludies, we had no gymnasium, and I resorted to
the use @f the Caroline Beecher calisthenics instead, I believe that to
this exercise, at least in part, I owe my robust health and a certain sup-
pleness of limb that T have never since lost. I quite shocked the lady
proprietor who was associated with me in the school by recommending,
as the cold weather came on, skating as a proper exercise for the young

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990 MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER.
ladies. This good dame looked upon the innovation as not only im-
modest, but as highly irreligions. -The roller-skate and the skating-
rink had not then been dreamed of. “So use doth breed a habit in a
man.”

One year of teaching at Hornellsville, and three more in charge of
a young ladies’ seminary at Owego, New York, carried me through the
never-to-be-forgotten struggle of the civil war. War is distasteful to
me under any circumstances. I dislike contention and quarrels of all
sorts, and have always avoided them when possible, preferring often to
suffer ills rather than to make complaint. And yet my whole life has
been in almost direct antagonism to all the old-established usages of
society and the prejudices of centuries.

I was opposed to slavery from the first moment that I was able to’

lisp from my school reader,— -

“ Fleeey locks and black complexion
Cannot forfeit nature’s claim:
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same ;”

but I deprecated the methods to which we were compelled to resort for
its eradication,—the fearful cruelties and cost of war,—-and would much
have preferred a peaceful arbitration, to the sad carnage that followed.
But no woman’s advice was asked about the war; no woman voted a
subsidy to maintain it; though all over the land, North and South,
women’s hearts were wrung over the loss of loved ones whom they
were powerless to shield, A war waged without the consent of a ma-
jority of the persons who are called upon to maintain it is unjust and
tyrannical ; but war is wrong per se.

But the war closed. The arm of the strongest prevailed. The
slave went free. It was a grand step onward in the liberties of the
world, but taken at the cost of a vast amount of blood and treasure,

which will prove sufficient, when the great outlay is summed up, in- -

eluding the amount paid and to be paid for pensions, to have bought
up every slave owned by the South six times over,

The next great contest that is about to sweep over the country and
break up the old party lines (bloodless, T hope, for rum has already had
her share of blood) is prohibition. The earth-rents made by the recent
earthquake-shocks will be nothing compared to the rents made in party
by the great tidal wave of prohibition that is about to sweep over the

land. That one of the great dominant parties now prominent in the .

political world that dares boldly to incorporate a stanch prohibition
plank in its platform will lead on to victory; while the party that
rejects it will die as the old Whig party died in 1860. There is no
dodging the issue. The controlling political power in this country for
the next ten years will be the reign of the common people, °

The Labor party, the Prohibition party, and the woman, are loom-
ing up on the horizon in a magnitude not to be undervalued by one
who chooses to read the signs of the times.

The vocation of the old machine politician is gone. The masses

“q




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MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER. . 991

of to-day are educated ; the masses of to-day think. The old political
issues of the past are dead.
In February, 1866, I sold out my school property in Owego,

-and came to Washington, for no other purpose than to see what was

being done at this ‘great political centre——this seething pot,—to learn
something of the practical workings of the machinery of government,
and to see what the great men and women of the country felt and.
thought. As I came without any great amount of money in my purse,
with no claim to being a public benefactor, with no vote on any im-
portant question, and was not a newspaper scribe, I had no pass on
the railroad, no free -board at the hotels, and hardly a passport into

aristocratic society (if such distinction is known to Washington life),

and therefore soon found that some exertion would be necessary to
sustain myself while I was making my proposed investigations. To
this end I accepted a position in a young ladies’ school with- barely
enough salary ‘for my maintenance, but with all the time after one

‘o'clock P.st. to myself. This was satisiactory, as it gave me ample

time for investigation ; and during the five months that I spent in this
school I listened to the debates in Congress and the arguments in the
United States Supreme Court, investigated the local government of the
District, visited her public buildings, studied her historic reminiscences,
her works of art, and finally the geology and geography of the sur-
rounding country.

In my college course I had studied and had become deeply interested
in the Constitution of the United States, the law of nations, politi-
cal economy, and other things that had given me an insight into po-
litical life. I had early conceived a passion for reading the biographies
of great men, and had discovered that in almost every instance law has
been the stepping-stone to greatness. Born a woman, with all of a

“woman’s feelings and intuitions, I had all of the ambitions of a man,

forgetting the gulf between the rights and privileges of the sexes. In
my efforts to discover new avenues of labor I met with some ludicrous
and some serious experiences,—many of which were known ouly to
myself. Andrew Johnson was at this time President of the republic,
and William H. Seward Secretary of State. There was a vacancy in
the consulship at Ghent. Conceiving that I could fill this position, I
had the audacity to make application for it. Preparatory to a pros-
pective appointment, I reviewed my German, read all the authors that
I could find on International Law in the United States Supreme Court

. Library, and, procuring throngh my member of Congress a copy of the
. Consular Manual, made myself. quite familiar with its contents, so that
, ; q

I fully believed that I was competent to perform the service required
of a consular officer, never once stopping to consider whether the nation -
to which I should be accredited would receive a woman.

To my disappointment and chagrin, no notice was ever taken
of my application, and I was too weak-kneed to renew it. The fact
that Andrew Johnson soon afterwards beeame involved in many com-
plications with Congress, which ended in his impeachment by that body,
may account In a measure for the lack of interest taken by him and by
the public at large in my humble aspirations.




_tion of the young men.



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222 My) EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER.

Meanwhile I had started a school at Union League Hall, and had
added to my business the renting of four other halls, which were filled
nightly with Temperance Orders, Posts of the Grand Army, and other
Orders. “A strange business for a woman,” the neighbors said. I did.
not care for these comments, but the work was distasteful to me, often
keeping me up late at night, and placing me constantly in contact with
people with whom I bad no affiliation. All my leisure hours were em-
ployed in study. And now, possessing myself of an old copy of the
Four Books of Blackstone’s Commentaries, I gave myself daily tasks
until I had read and re-read them through. In the midst of these
labors I committed the indiscretion so common to.the women of this
country, and, after fifteen years and more of widowhood, married the
Rev. Ezekiel Lockwood, on the 11th of March, 1868.

But this marriage did not cure my mania for the law. The school
was given up, and during the following year I read Kent’s Commen-
taries, occupying all the spare moments in the midst of my domestic
work. In the autumn of 1869, on the opening of the Columbian
College Law Class, I attended with my husband, by invitation of its
President, Dr. Samson, the opening lecture of the course, delivered by
him. I also went to the second lecture, and before the third presented
myself for matriculation in the class and offered to pay the entrance-
fee, This was refused, and I was thereupon informed that the question
of my admission would be submitted to the faculty, One week, two
weeks, elapsed, when one day I received a letter running thus:

. “CoLUMBIAN CoLLEGE, Oct. 7, 1869.
“Mrs. Betva A. Lock woop: ye
“MapaM,—The Faculty of Columbian College have considered
your request to be admitted to the Law Department of this institu-
tion, and, after due consultation, have considered that such admission’
would not be expedient, as it would be likely to distract the atten-

“ Respectfully,
“Gro. W. Samson, Pres,”

I was much chagrined by this slap in the face, and the inference to
be drawn from it, that my rights and privileges were not to be con-
sidered a moment whenever they came in conflict with those of the
opposite sex. My husband counselled that T should keep silence about’
it, as his relations with Dr. Samson, as ministers and co-laborers in .
the same church, had hitherto been friendly, But the truth would
out. The newspaper men got hold of it, as newspaper men will,
and came to me and demanded to see the letter, declaring that the
action of Dr. Samson was a matter of public interest. My husband
protested ; but I read them the letter, retaining the original, which I
still have.

Next year the National University Law School was opened, and,
ostensibly as a part of its plan to admit women to membership on the
game terms as young men, I was invited, with other ladies, to attend
the classes, and gladly accepted. At its first session, fifteen ladies ma-


MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER. 923

triculated, partly as a novelty, I suppose, but certainly without any ade-
quate idea of the amount of labor involved. Many of them left with
the close of the first quarter ; but'some continued through the year, and
a few of them held on until the middle of the second year. Only two
persons, Lydia S. Hall and myself, completed the course. At first, be-
sides the regular class-recitations, we were admitted to the lectures with
the young men; although the recitations had been separate. This was
a compromise between prejudice and progress. It was not long before
there commenced to be a growl by the young men, some of them de-
claring openly that they would not graduate with women. The women
were notified that they could no longer attend the lectures, but would be
permitted to complete the course of studies. As Commencement day
approached, it became very evident that we were not to receive our
diplomas, nor be permitted to appear on the stage with the young men
at graduation, This was a heavy blow to my aspirations, as the diploma
would have been the entering wedge into the court and saved me the
weary contest which followed.

For a time I yielded quite ungracefully to the inevitable, while
Lydia §. Hall solaced herself by marrying a man named Graffan and
leaving the city. She was not a young women at that. time, but a staid
matron, past forty ; and after her departure I entirely lost sight of her,
and suppose she became “merged,” as Blackstone says, in her husband.
I was not to be squelched so easily.

I asked a member of the bar, Francis Miller, Esq., to move my
admission to the bar of the Supreme Court, D.C., which he did, some
time in the latter part of July, 1872, and I was referred to the ex-
amining committee for report. I at once hunted up the committee and
asked for the examination. It was with evident reluctance that the
committee came together for the examination, which was quite rigid
and lasted for three days. I waited for weeks after this, but the com-
mittee did not report. Thereupon I entered complaint of their action
to the Supreme Justice, David K. Cartler, and another committce was
appointed. It was Judge Cartter who one year -before, in the revision
of the Laws of the District of Columbia, knowing that some women
in the District were preparing for admission to the bar, had asked that
the rule of court be so amended as to strike out the word “ male,” and
it had been done, so that this disability no longer stood in my way.
The new committee, like the old one, examined me for three days, but
would not report. They were opposed to the innovation. The age of
progress that had to some extent softencd and liberalized the judges of
the District Supreme Court had not touched the old-time conservatisin
of the bar. I was blocked, discouraged, pro tempore, but had not the
remotest idea of giving up.

Desperate enough for any adventure, I now, at the request of Theo-
dore Tilton, went on a‘canvassing and campaigning tour through the
Southern States in the interest of the New York Tribune and (Golden
Age, and of Horace Greeley, whom the Liberal Republicans had nomi-
nated for the Presidency in July, 1872. My trip was a reasonably
successful one, but it did not elect Greeley.

After the political sky had cleared, T made my appearance at a

Vou. SLIE—15

en cana nner sehr asnmnnsnentnnte atin 5


Q04 MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYBR.

course of lectures in the Georgetown College Law Class; but when a
call was made by the Chancellor for the settlement of dues my money
was declined, and I was informed by a note from the Chancellor, a few
days later, that I could not become a member of the class. I then
turned my attention to Howard University, and for a time attended the
lectures in that institution; but the fight was getting monotonous and
decidedly one-sided. Some of the justices of the peace in the District,
and Judge William B. Snell of the Police Court, had notified me that
I would be recognized in their respective courts as attorney in the trial
of any case in which I chose to appear ; and Judge Olin had recognized
me in the Probate Court of the District. I had even ventured to bring
suit en'a.contract In a justice court. This procedure was considered
so novel that. it was telegraphed all over the country by the Associated
Press. ‘

I now grew a little bolder, and to a certain extent desperate, and
addressed the following letter to President Grant, then President ex
officio of the National University Law School:

: “No, 482 Nyxvu Srreet., N.W.,
; “Wasuincton, D.C., September 3, 1873.
“To His Excellency U. 8. Grant, President U. 8. A.:

“Srr,—Yon are, or you are not, President of the National Univer-
sity Law School. If you are its President, I desire to say to you that
T have passed through the curriculum of study in this school, and am
entitled to, and demand, my diploma. If you are not its President, then
I ask that you take your name from its paperg, and not hold out to the
world to be what you are not, a

“Very respectfully,
“Betva A. Lockwoop.”

This letter contained about as much bottled-up indignation as it
was possible for one short missive to conceal under a respectful guise.
I received no direct answer, but next week I was presented by the
Chancellor of the University, W. B. Wedgewood, with my - diploma
duly signed, and a few days after I was admitted to the bar.

. On my admission, the clerk remarked, “ You went through to-day, ”
Mrs. Lockwood, like a knife, "You see the world moves in our day.”

Justice Cartter said, “Madam, if you come into this court we shall
treat you likea man.” Justice Arthur McArthur remarked, “ Bring on
as many women lawyers as you choose: I do not believe they will be a
success,’ These comments did not affect me, as I already had my

_hands full of work, and cases ready to file in anticipation of my admis-

sion. My friends had confidence in my ability ; and the attention that
had been called to me in the novel contest I had made not only gave
me a wide advertising, but drew towards me a great deal of substantial
sympathy in the way of work, Besides this, 1 had already booked a
large number of government claims, in which I had been recognized by
the heads of the different Departments as attorney: so that I was not
compelled, like my young brothers of the bar who did not wish to
graduate with a woman, to sit in my office and wait for cases. I have





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MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER. * 995

been now fourteen years before the bar, in an almost continuous prac-
tice, and my experience has been large, often serious, and many times
amusing. . I have ‘never lacked plenty of good paying work; but,
while I have supported my family well, I have not grown rich. In
business I have been patient, painstaking, and indefatigable. There is
no ‘class of case that comes before the court that I have not ventured to
try, either civil, equitable, or criminal; and my clients have been as
largely men as women. There is a good opening at the bar for the class
of women who have taste and tact for it,
' But neither my ambitions nor my troubles ceased with my admis-
sion to the District bar. On or about the Ist of April, 1874, having
-an important case to file in the Court of Claims, I asked one A. A.
Hosmer, a reputable member of the bar of that court, to move my
admission thereto, having previously filed with the clerk my power of
-attorney in the case, and a certificate from the clerk of the District

- .Courtof my good standing therein, as required by the rule of that court.

At precisely twelve o’clock the five justices of that dignified court
marched in, made their solgmn bows, and sat down. Without ceremony,
after the formal opening of the court by the clerk, and the reading of
the mjputes of the last session, my gracious attorney moved my ad-
mission. There was a painful pause. Every eye in the court-room
was fixed first upon me, and then upon the court ; when Justice Drake,
in measured words, announced, “ Afistress Lockwood, you are a woman,”
For the first time in my life I began to realize that it was a crime to
be a woman; but it was too late to put in a denial, and I at once
pleaded guilty to the charge of the court. Then the chief justice an-
nounced, “This cause will be continued for one week.” I retired in
good order, but my counsel, who had only been employed for that
oceasion, deserted me, and seemed never afterwards to have backbone
enough to keep up the fight.

On the following week, duly as the hand of the clock approached
the hour of twelve, [ again marched into thé court-room, but this time
almost with as much solemnity as the judges, and accompanied by my
husband and several friends. When the case of Lockwood was reached,
and I again stood up before that august body, the solemn tones of
the chicf justice announced, “ Mistress Lockwood, you are a married
woman!” Here was a new and quite unexpected arraignment, that
almost took my breath away for the moment; but I collected myself,
“and responded, with awave of my hand towards my husband, “ Yes,
may it please the court, but I am here with the consent of my hus-
band,” Dr. Lockwood at the same time bowing to the court. My
pleading and distressed look was of no avail. The solemn chief justice
responded, “ This cause will be continued for another week.”

Secing that a fierce contest was imminent, I forthwith employed a
member of this bar, one Charles W. Horner, to appear and plead my
cause. He was a man who loved justice, and who feared neither the
court nor conservatism. He prepared an able argument, presented it to
the court on the following Monday, and, after patient attention, was
allowed to file the same with the clerk, while the cause of “ Lockwood”
was continued for one more week. Next Monday, Judge Peck, who




a
926 MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER.

had been sitting in the cause, had died; and of course there was an ad-
journment for another week. Upon the convening of the court at this
time the cause was given to Judge Nott to deliver the opinion of the
court; and three weeks were devoted to this work. I had time to
reflect, to study up on my law, to ponder upon the vast disparity be-
tween the sexes, and, if I had possessed any nice discrimination, to see
the utter folly of my course. But 1 would not be convinced.

Three weeks later, I was again present on the solemn assembling
of that court. It took Judge Nott one hour and a half to deliver his
opinion, which closed as follows :

“The position which this court assumes is that under the laws and
Constitution of the United States a court is without power to grant
such an application, and that a woman is without legal capacity to take
the office of attorney.” ~

Of course this was a squelcher, and with the ordinary female mind
would have ended the matter; for it was concurred in without a dis-
senting voice by the four other judges on that august bench. But I
was at this time not only thoroughly interested in the law, but devoted
to my clients, anxious that their business should not suffer, and de-
termined to support my family by the profession I had chosen. My
cases and my powers of attorney were filed in the court, and. there was
nothing to prevent me from taking the testimony, which I did, and
preparing the notices and motions which my clients filed. Neverthe-
less I found that I was working continuously at a disadvantage, and
that my clients lacked the confidence in me that I would have com-
manded had I stood fairly with the court.

I had another important case in course of preparation to file in the
Court of Claims, and, in order to bridge over the disability under which
I stood with the court, I took an assignment of the claim. But in this
I hardly succeeded better. The case was that of Webster M. Raines et
ux. against the United States, and my assignment covered only. one-
third of it. I appeared in propria persona, and attempted to argue my
own case. The chief justice declared that I was nof the assignee, al-
though the original claimant appeared in court and declared that I was,
and stated also his desire to ha've me represent his portion of the case.
Tt was no use. When 1 arose to explain my position, the court grew
white at my audacity and imperturbability, and ppsitively declined to
hear me. ‘Then I hired a lawyer to represent me in the case,—a male
attorney, who had been a judge on the bench. He occupied the court
for three days in saying very badly what I could have. said well in one
hour. This was some little revenge; but he lost my case, and I at once
appealed it to the United States Supreme Court, hoping that before the
case would be reached in that court I should have had the three years
of good standing in the court below, and thus become entitled to ad-
mission thereto under the rule, which reads, “Any attorney in good
standing before the highest court of any State or Territory for the space
of three years shall be admitted to this court when presented by a
member of this bar.” I read the rule over carefully and repeatedly,
to make sure that it included me, and asked myself, Why not? Was
not I a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the District of

pemmrowenimey meen

“y




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MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER. 2927

Columbia in good standing? Had I not been such for three years?
The law did not say “any man,” or “any male citizen,” but “any
attorney.” .

Patiently, hopefully, I waited. At last, in October, 1876, full of
hope and expectation, and in company with the Hon. A. G. Riddle,
whom I had asked to introduce me, I presented myself before the bar
of the United States Supreme Court for admission thereto, Again I
had reckoned without my host. My attorney made the presentation,
holding my credentials in his hand. Those nine gowned judges looked
at me in amazement and dismay. The case was taken under advisement,
and on the following Monday an opinion rendered, of which the fol-
lowing is the substance: “As this court knows no English precedent for
the admission of women to the bar, it declines to admit, unless there shall
be a more éxtended public opinion, or special legislation.” * No pen can
portray the utter astonishment and surprise with which I listened to
this decision. My reverence for thé ermine vanished into thin air. I
‘was dazed, and kept repeating to myself, “No English precedent !
How about Queens Eleanor and Elizabeth, who sat in the aula regia
and dispensed the duties of chief chancellor of the English realm in
person? How about Anne, Countess of Pembroke, who was hereditary

‘sheriff of Westmoreland, and who at the assizes at Appleby sat with

the judges on the bench?” “A more extended public opinion,” —how
was I to make it? “Special legislation,’—how was I to obtain it,
with a family to support, and a sick husband on my hands? I went
home, and again took up the thread of my law cases before the District
bar, but determined not to let this matter rest.

What next? When Congress assembled in December, I appealed
to the Hon. Benjamin F. Butlgy to draft and introduce in that body a
bill for the admission of women’to the bar of the United States Supreme
Court. This was my first bid for the special legislation, The bill was
carefully drawn, introduced, recommended by the House Judiciary for
passage, debated, and ingloriously lost on its third reading.

The following year a second bill, drafted, at my suggestion, by
Hon. Wm. G. Lawrence, fared even worse than the first, and died
almost before it was born.

During all these years of discouragement I was indefatigable in the
prosecution of my cases before the bar of the District, and had won
some reputation as a lawyer. My husband, after three years of total
prostration, died, April 23, 1877. In the autumn of 1877 some of the
newspaper men of Washington, who had begun to be interested in the
long and unequal contest that I had waged, asked me what I intended
to do next. “Get up a fight all along the line,” I replied. “TJ shall
ask again to be admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court ; I shall
myself draft a bill and ask its introduction into both Houses of Con-
gress ; and, as I have now a case to be brought in the Federal court in
Baltimore, Royuello vs. Attoché, I shall ask admission to the bar of



* Justice Miller dissented from this opinion, and the chief justice himself,
but if his decision was ever reduced to writing, he never allowed it to be printed.
It was jn vain that I sought a copy of it from the clerk,


928 MY EFFORTS TO BECOME A LAWYER.

the Federal court at Baltimore.” This latter claim had been sent to me

from the city of Mexico, and was for fifty thousand dollars. “ Very

well,” said they: “we are going to help you out this time.” And they
id.

IT prepared and asked the Hon. John M. Glover to introduce into
the House of Representatives, in December, 1877, the following bill:

“ Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled :

“That any woman duly qualified who shall have been a member of
the highest court of any State or Territory, or of the Supreme Court
of the District of Columbia, for the space of three years, and shall have
maintained a good standing before such Court, and who shall be a person
of good moral character, shall, on motion, and the production of such
record, be admitted to practise before the Supreme Court of the United
States.”

I was soon called to make an argument before the House Committee
on the Judiciary, after which the bill was favorably reported without a
dissenting voice, and passed the House early in the session by a two-
thirds majority.

On reaching the Senate, it was referred to the Senate Judiciary and
committed to the Hon. Aargn A. Sargent, of California, Conceiving
that the bill as it passed the House was not broad enough, he amended
it, but his amendment was lost, and the Judiciary Committee made an
adverse report on the bill. I had done a great deal of lobbying and
had used a great many arguments to get the bill through, but all to no
avail. With consummate tact, Mr. Sargent had the bill recommitted,
but it went over to the next session. I worked diligently through the
second session of the Forty-fifth Congress for the passage of my bill,
but the Judiciary Committee made a second adverse report on the bill,
and this time Mr. Sargent had the forethought to have the bill calen-
dared, so that it might come up on its merits. ss

But another misfortune overtook’ me: Mr. Sargent was taken ill”

before my bill was reached, and compelled to go to Florida for his health.
What was I to do now? Here was my work. for years about to be
wrecked for want of a foster-mother in the Senate to take charge of it.
T knew pretty well the status of every member of that body, for I had
conversed with all of them, both at this and at the previous session ;
and in this extremity I went to the Hon. Joseph E.. McDonald,
of Indiana, and besought him to take charge of the bill. At first he
declined, because, as he said, it was Mr. Sargent’s bill, and, when I
insisted, he bade me go to the Hon. George ¥. Hoar. I found that
gentleman somewhat unwilling to take the entire responsibjlity of the
bill. I was not satisfied to Jeave anything that I ought to do undone,
and ‘so returned to Mr. McDonald, told him that I feared Mr. Sargent’s
health was such that he would not return in time, and besought him
to take upon himself the responsibility of urging and securing the
passage of the bill, saying that Senator Hoar would assist him, and
e

nator Sargent also, when he returned. From the time he assumed.

this responsibility Senator McDonald was vigilant in the interest of
the bill, and, as the Forty-fifth Congress drew to a close, used what in-

Se

voy






SERE WISDOM. 229

fluence he could to get the bill up. It was in a precarious position, A
single objection would carry it over. When it was about to be reached,
I grew anxious, almost desperate,—called out everybody who was op-
posed to the bill, and begged that it might be permitted to come up
on its merits,-and that a fair vote might be had on it in the Senate.

I have been interested in many bills in Congress, and have often
appeared before commitiges of Senate and House; but this was by far
the strongest lobbymg that I ever performed. Nothing was too daring
for me to attempt. ‘I addressed Senators as though they were old

. familiar friends, and with an earnestness that carried with it convic-

tion. Before the shadows of night had gathered, the victory had been
won. The bill admitting women to the bar of the United States
Supreme Court passed the Senate on the 7th of February, 1879. It
was signed by the President, Rutherford B, Hayes, some days later.

On the 3d of March, 1879, on motion.of the Hon. A. G. Riddle,
I was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court. The
passage of that bill virtually opened the doors of all the Federal courts
in the country to the women of the land, whenever qualified for such
admission. 1 was readily admitted to the District Courts of Maryland
and Massachusetts-after this admission to the Supreme Court.

On the 6th of March, 1879, on motion of the Hon, Thomas J.
Durant, I was admitted to the bar of the United States Court of
Claims. Thus ended the great struggle for the admission of woman
to the bar. Most of the States in the Union have since recognized her
right thereto, and notably the State of Pennsylvahia, as in the case of
Carrie B. Kilgore, who has recently been admitted to the Supreme
Court of the State.
Belva A, Lockwood.



,

SERE WISDOM.

HAD remembrance of a summer morn,
When all the glistening field was softly stirred,
And like a child’s in happy sleep I heard
The low and healthful breathing of the corn,
Late when the sumach’s red was dulled and worn,
And fainter grew the trite and troublous word
Of tristful cricket, that replaced the bird,
I sought the slope, and found a waste forlorn.

Againsi that cold clear west, whence winter peers,
‘All spectral stood the bleachéd stalks thin-leaved,
Dry as papyrus kept a thousand years,
And hissing whispered to the wind that grieved,
Et was a dream—we bare no goodly ears—
There was no summer-time—deceired ! deceived !
Helen Gray Cone,