Minor v. Happersett (1874)
Virginia Minor was a member of Susan B. Anthony's National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) who tried to vote in Missouri, but was blocked by the registrar on the grounds that voting was limited to males by the state constitution.  Because married women could not on their own initiate legal actions, her husband joined her in bringing a lawsuit arguing that her rights of citizenship had been violated.  The US Supreme Court ruled in 1874 that voting was not among the privileges guaranteed citizens by the Fourteenth Amendment.  After that decision, the NWSA adopted the new strategy of working for a constitutional amendment that would grant women the suffrage.  Such an amendment (the Nineteenth) was finally passed in 1920, 46 years after the Minor v. Happersett decision. 

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