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abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States "

Now since the Supreme Court affirmed 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 women were "entitled to all of the priveleges and
immunities of citizenship," and that the 14th, Amendment
had "prohibited" the states of which women were citizens
from making or enforcing any laws that deprived them of
"any" of their rights as citizens of the United States it is
evident that the Court simply decided that the right to vote
for members of Congress and Presidential Elections was not
one of therights of citizens of the United States, when it de-
cided that the 14th, Amendment had not made void the Con-
stitutions and laws of the State which deprived women of a
right to vote for members of Congress and Presidential Elec-
tions by saying in the conclusion of its Minor vs. Happensett
decision:— "Being unanimously of the opinion that the Con-
stitution of the United States does not confer the right of
sufferage upon any one, and that the Constitutions and laws
of the several States which commit that important trust to
men alone, are not necessarily void we offer the judgment
of the court below." And that the Court therefore did not
decide in their case, that women were not guaranteed the pro-
tection of Congress against the enforcement of such state
laws as deprived them of such rights as owed "their ex-
istence to the Federal Government, its national character,
its Constitutional or its laws "

And since the foregoing statements are true, it is
________________
<sup>*
* Slaughter-House cases of 1873
+ Minor vs. Happensett of 1875</sup>

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evident that the Supreme Court necessarily decided that
the right to vote for members of Congress and Presidential
Elections was one of the rights of citizens of the United
States, and that the 14th, Amendment had made void the
Constitutions and laws of the state which deprived female
citizens of of the right to vote for these federal offices by
deciding in Ex Porte Yarbrough of 1884 that "the right to
vote" for members of Congress and Presidential Elect ions ors
in the several States of this union was secured to citizens
of the United States by the Federal Constitution.

That the Judges of the Supreme Court who rendered
the Minor vs. Happensett decision of 1875, intended to de-
cide in it, that "the Constitution of the United States did
not confer the right of sufferage upon any one," is evident
from the fact that these Judges have themselves declared
that they did in their U S. vs. Cruikshank decision of 1876.

For these Judges refused to protect some blackmen in
exercising a right to vote at "any election" in the State of
Louisiana under the 6th. Section of the Congressional Act of
1870, now called Section 5508 of the Revised Statutes of the
United States, by using the following words in their U. S.
vs. Cruikshank decision of 1876: "In Minor vs. Happensett
21 Wall 178 (88, U. S. xxii. 631) we decided that the Con-
stitution of the United States has not confered the right of
sufferage upon any one, and that the United States have no
voters of their own creation in the States. In U.S. vs.
Reese just decided, we hold that the 15th, Amendment
has inverted the citizens of the United States with anew
constitutional right, which is exemption from discrimi-
nation in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of
race, color or previous condition of servitude. From this it
appears that the right of sufferage is not a necessary at-
tribute of national citizenship; but that exemption from

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