TAR HEEL HISTORY
By Billy Arthur
Equal Justice
For All
It took more than a passing grade for North ( /arolinas
first woman lawyer to win the right to practice.
On Monday, |antiaiy 7. 1878. HI
applicants tor law licenses ap-
|MMM’d before the North Carolina
Supreme Court, the usually dignified
and orderly tribunal became ruffled,
«•sen astounded and puzzled, in fact, that
one of the applicants was a 24-vear-old
woman.
Л
woman lawyer in North Carolina!
The piccedcnt-!>ound high court
had no precedent loi that, though
fivcothci states — none in the South
— had already admitted women to
the bai. So the confused justices took
a middle-oi l lie-mad course. They
administered the licensing exami¬
nation to the IS men but suggested
that Tabitha Ann I lolton of Guilford
County, who created the dilemma,
return in two days with counsel anti
plead her case.
Holton was agreeable on Monthly,
but lw Tuesday she was ready to turn
around anti go home. The Ralngh
Obvn<n- reported: "The fad of her
peculiar t irt umstances Ix-ing known,
causing genet al comment .4:c.. yvas
very mot tilying t< > bet feelings and, as
she informed ns, she suffered the
horrors ol a hundred deaths, not at
the thought she would fail... but at
being made t onspit nous and 'talked
about.*"
She said she would have “spurned"
the itleaof applying "hail she thought
of the commotion and unnecessary pub¬
lic comment” it yvoultl evoke. “But her
spirits rallietl as she thought of the many
days of hard study."
Holton was described as modest and
unassuming, with an “intellectual cast of
countenance." "She dresses neatly and in
good taste but not gorgeously." the paper
said. Though thoroughly educated, mas¬
tering three or four languages with great
ease and f at ility. she is rather timid in con¬
versation. but also displays fine colloquial
powers.'
rowing IxMtks from ( .teen six»
о
attorneys.
They then tested her on what she had
read.
She told the Ohm vr she did not intend
to practice in Not til ( amlina but to move
yvith hei brother. Samuel K. Holton, who
had been licensed the day before, to
Kansas. "Where a number of female
lawyers find lucrative office practice."
Without a license, she would need two
years of residency’, but with a license she
could lx- admitted to the Kansas bar
immediately.
“Besides.” she said, "a license from the
Supreme Court of North Carolina I
regard as a safe passport lot me to any
point and invaluable as a certificate of
merit."
On Wednesday Holton's counsel was
Albion W. Tourgee. a prominent Greens¬
boro attorney who spoke convincingly to
the court for an hour and a half. The pre¬
siding justices were William Smith, chief.
Edwin G. Reade. William P. Bynum. W.B.
Rodman and W’.T. Fairclolh.
Discussing the cour t's | lowers to license
attorneys. Tourgee argued that the word¬
ing of the statute — "such persons as may
apply" — covered his client's appli¬
cation. There yvas no legislative
intention to include women, he
said, hut none to exclude them,
either. He noted that blacks had
been granted licenses yvhen certain¬
ly there had l>een no intention at
the time of the law's adoption to
include them, either.
lie also pointed out that the
statute [XT mil ted lawyers from
other states to practice in North Car¬
olina upon producing a license. If
one of them happened to he a
woman, she could not Ik* distxirred
here. That makes "absurd the idea
of denying a daughter of this suite
what is allowed women of oilier
states." he declared.
When the slate enacted the law.
Tourgee said, no one ever consid¬
ered the possibility that a woman
might apply. “Women’s sphere has
become so extended that the sex is
now represented in almost all the
professions." he said. “Do not preju¬
dice the application ol a simple
country girl, who desires to elevate
herself and her tainily l>\ engaging in the
labors of a profession which has long
boasted of its honorable character.”
He mentioned one [Kissible objection
that "clothes itself in the guise of chival re¬
consideration for women."
"It is said that it is improper that one
In law. she had etluc atetl herself bv bor-
Tabitha Ann
/
lolton
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