All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are _citizens_ of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. To deny the right asked in this bill would be to deny to women citizens the rights guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence to be self-evident and inalienable, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"; a denial of one of the fundamental rights of a portion of the citizens of the commonwealth to acquire property in the most honorable profession of the law, thereby perpetuating an invidious distinction between male and female citizens equally amenable to the law, and having an equal interest in all of the institutions created and perpetuated by this government. The articles of confederation declare that: The free inhabitants of each of these States--paupers and fugitives from justice excepted--shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States. Article 4 of the constitution says: Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Wyoming, Utah, and the District of Columbia admit women to the bar. What then? Shall the second cooerdinate branch of the government, the judiciary, refuse to grant what it will not permit the States to deny, the privileges and immunities of citizens, and say to women-attorneys when they have followed their cases through the State courts to that tribunal beyond which there is no appeal, "You cannot come in here we are too holy," or in the words of the learned chancellor declare that: By the uniform practice of the court from its organization to the present time, and by a fair construction of its rules, none but men are admitted to practice before it as attorneys and counselors. This is in accordance with immemorial usage in England, and the law and practice in all the States until within a recent period, and the court does not feel called upon to make a change until such a change is required by statute, or a more extended practice in the highest courts of the States. With all due respect for this opinion, we beg leave to quote the rule for admission to the bar of that court as laid down in the rule book: