931

OverviewTranscribeVersionsHelp

Facsimile

Transcription

Status: Needs Review

[left column]

"white and male" to the list of qualifications that the Con-
stitution of New Jersey had prescribed for Electors of the
most numerous branch of the Legislature of that State when
it was adopted in 1776.

But at the time the 14th and 15th Amendments of our
Federal Constitution were adopted in 1868 and 1870, every
State in the union, so far as I know to the contrary, had
adopted a Constitution and laws which confined the right
to vote at State elections and for members of Congress and
Presidential Electors to white men.

The Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States
declared in their Slaughter-House cases decision of 1873,
that their Court had decided in the Dred Scott case that
negroes were not and could not be citizens under the
Original Constitution of the United States; but that if this
was a fact, negroes had been made citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they resided, by that clause
of the 14th Amendment of the Federal Coustitution which
said: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside."

But these Judges proved by a long argument in their
Minor vs. Happensett decision of 1875, that white women
had been citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they resided, equally with white men, ever since
the Federal Government was established.

The Supreme Court claimed in its Slaughter-House
cases of 1873, that the l4th Amendment "recognised and
established" the distinction between the rights of citizens
of the United States and the rights of citizens of a State.
And that this Court intended to claim the above mentioned
thing, is evident from the fact that in its U. S. vs. Cruik-
shank decision of 1876, it uses the following words in refer-

(2)

[right column]
ence to its Slaughter-House cases decision of 1873: "We
have in our political system a government of the United
States and a government of each of the several States. Each
one of these governments is distinct from the others, and
each has citizens of its own, who owe it allegiance, and whose
rights, within its jurisdiction it must protect. The same per-
son may be, at the same time a citizen of the United States,
and a citizen of a State, but his rights of citizenship under
one of these governments will be different from that he has
under the other. Slaughter-House cases 16 Well 74 (83.
U. S. xxi, 408)."

The Supreme Court also claimed in this Slaughter-
House cases of 1873, that the rights of citizens of the United
States were those which "owe their existence to the Federal
Government, its national character, its Constitution or its
laws;" that the rights of citizens of the United States were
guaranteed the protection of Congress against the enforce-
ment of State laws by that paragraph of the l4th Amend-
ment of the Federal Constitution which said: "No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;"
but that the rights of citizens of a State "whatever they
may he are not intended to have any additional protection
by this paragraph."

And after claiming the above mentioned things in its
Slaughter-House cases of 1873, the Supreme Court declared
in its Minor vs. Happensett decision of 1875, that women
were "entitled to all of the privileges and immunities of
itizenship," and that the l4th Amendment had "prohibit-
ed" the States of which women were citizens from making
or enforcing any laws which deprived them of any" of
their rights as citizens of the United States, when it said:
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall

(3)

83606

Notes and Questions

Nobody has written a note for this page yet

Please sign in to write a note for this page