Early Civil Rights Cases
Like
the courts of today, the early Iowa courts were sometimes called upon to decide
cases that involved volatile social or political controversies of the
time. For example, from 1839 to 1873,
the Iowa Supreme Court decided three civil rights cases—one involving the
question of slavery, another about segregated education, and a third case about
equal rights to public accommodations.
These decisions demonstrate legal foresight as well as a deep and
abiding respect for the values enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The
first of these cases was the very first decision of the Iowa Supreme Court—In Re the Matter of Ralph, decided July, 1839. In 1834, a Missouri resident named Montgomery entered into a
written agreement with his slave Ralph.
The agreement allowed Ralph to reside in the Iowa territory to earn
money to purchase his freedom for $550 plus interest. Ralph went to Dubuque where he found a job working in the lead
mines. Ralph failed to pay this amount
and after five years had passed Montgomery sent bounty hunters to abduct Ralph
and return him to Missouri. Ralph was brought before the district court by a
writ of habeas corpus, and the proceedings were transferred to the Iowa Supreme
Court, which agreed to hear the case.
The
Iowa Supreme Court found that Ralph should pay his debt, but held that "no
man in this territory can be reduced to slavery." The court rejected the
argument that Ralph was a fugitive slave, reasoning that by allowing him to
leave Missouri and reside in a free state, Montgomery could no longer exercise
any right over him in the Iowa territory. The U.S. Supreme Court faced a
similar question 18 years later when it decided the infamous Dred Scott
(1857) case. However, unlike the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling in Ralph,
the U.S. Supreme Court decision maintained the rights of the slave holder and
ordered the slave returned. The issue of slavery would not be settled until the
Civil War.
In
1868, the Iowa Supreme Court decided the landmark Clark v. The Board of
Directors. The case involved a 12-year-old girl who had been denied
admission to her neighborhood school because of her race. The court held that
segregated schools were inherently unequal when it stated that "the law
makes no distinction as to the right of children … to attend the common
schools." To do otherwise, the court held, would violate the spirit of our
laws and perpetuate racial strife. It took 85 years for the U.S. Supreme Court
to rule against segregated schools-- which it did in Brown v. Board of
Education (1954).
In
1873, the court heard Coger v. The North Western Union Packet Co. This
case centered on a woman who, because of her African decent, was forcibly
removed from the dining car of the steamboat on which she was traveling. The
woman had an unrestricted meal ticket. The Iowa Supreme Court held that the
woman was entitled to the same rights and privileges as white passengers. The
same conclusion was not reached by the U.S. Supreme Court until Heart of
Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964), a case that upheld the 1964
Civil Rights Act.
The Nation's First Woman
Lawyer
The supreme court's fundamental concern for
equal treatment for all reached beyond case law into other aspects of the
court's authority, including its authority to admit lawyers to the practice of
law in Iowa. In
1869, the court ruled that women may not be denied the right to practice law in
Iowa and admitted Arabella A. Mansfield.
Ms. Mansfield was the first woman admitted to the practice of law in any
state in the nation.
Arabella A. Mansfield