Last week, we looked at Belva Lockwood’s journey to the Supreme Court bar, making her the first woman to be given the chance to argue in front of the high nine. A case that would give her that opportunity would not come along immediately, so she instead set about helping others previously denied this honor. On February 2, 1880, she proposed Samuel R. Lowery (that’s him at left) for admission to the Supreme Court bar. After being questioned as to whether she was entitled to do so, Lockwood answered in the affirmative and Lowery was sworn in, making him the fifth Black man to join this august club. He is, by most accounts, also the first to have argued in front of the Supreme Court, but nobody seems to remember which case this was in.
The following year, Lockwood would appeal to the Supreme Court in a case that she had been working on since 1875. Caroline Kaiser had been taken to court for non-payment of a promissory note, a note she had not been able to pay due to the incapacitation of her husband. Lockwood’s argument – which had failed in the Supreme Court of the District – was that the property laws of D.C. did not allow a wife to encumber her own property without the consent of her husband.
Lockwood and her fellow lawyer Mike Woods appealed to the Supreme Court, and Woods repeated the same argument. He was not greeted with any great enthusiasm for his reasoning. The front page of the Washington Evening Star on December 2, 1880 tells what happened next:
After the argument of Mr. Woods had concluded the court declined to hear counsel for the appellee; thereupon Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, who had prepared and filed the original bill in the case, arose and expressed a desire to be heard in support of the appeal. The court said she might proceed. She then presented her views of the case in an argument of about twenty minutes’ duration, and this was the first time Mrs. Lockwood had an opportunity to argue a cause in the U.S. Supreme Court.
This would represent Lockwood’s only appearance at the Supreme Court bar for over 20 years. In the meantime, she would cement her fame by running for President in both 1884 and 1888 as the candidate for the Equal Rights Party. She would win about 4,000 votes the first time, and rather less the second, although there was some evidence that votes for her were not counted and simply thrown away.
Lockwood was undeterred and continued to work as a lawyer, although she found the time she spent traveling and speaking cutting into her time in court.
In 1906, Lockwood would appear before the Supreme Court again. In this case, she was acting for the Cherokee Nation, who had signed a treaty in 1835 that gave the United States land in Georgia in return for 1 million dollars. The US had never upheld their side of the bargain, and on the strength of Lockwood’s arguments, were told not only to pay the original sum, but also interest, a total of 5 million dollars.
Belva Lockwood would die on May 19, 1917 and she is buried in Congressional Cemetery, just a few miles from the court she fought so hard to be admitted to.