Bradwell v. State: Some Reflections Prompted by Myra Bradwell's Hard Case That Made "Bad Law"

Bradwell and Slaughter-House deserve study together for a second reason. These two decisions provide useful lessons for our time about the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).10 They demonstrate that the consequences of a constitutional amendment—particularly one written in abstract and grand terms like the fourteenth amendment or the ERA—are unpredictable and dependent upon imponderables such as the sequence of cases on the Court's calendar.