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The bill indirectly claimed that the 14th and 15th
Amendments had annUlled the words "white and male" in
the Constitutions and laws of the States, as qualification for
voting by indirectly claiming that there were some women
in each of our several States and Territories who possessed
all of the quatifications requisite for Electors of the most
numerous branch of their Legislatures; but the bill only
authorized women to vote for members of Congress.

This bill is entitled -"A bill to secure to all citizens of
the United States the right to vote at certain elections
without distinction of SEX, and for other purposes. Be it
enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That all
citizens of the United States having the quatifications re-
quisite for electors of the most numerous branch of any
State or Territorial legislature shall be entitled and allowed
to vote at any election for Representative or Delegate in the
Congress of the United States without distinction or SEX
any constitution, law, custom. usage, or regulation of any
State or Territory or by or under its authority to the contrary
notwithstanding.

Section 2, That the provisions of the act entitled,—
"An act to enforce the right of citizens of the United States
to vote, in the several States of this union and for other pur-
poses approved May thirty-first, eighteen hundred and sev-
ty, shall govern to enforce the provisions of this act so far
as the same are applicable."

Now I think, as I believe that the gentlemen who wrote
this bill thought at the time they wrote it, that the 14th
and 15th Amendments only annulled the words "white and
male" that were in the Constitutions and laws of our States
as qualifications for voting when they were adopted in 1868
and 1870, in so far as these words prevented white women

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and colored men and women from having the SAME right to
vote for federal officers that white men possessed.

So in my petition I have only requested Congress to
make federal laws that enable white women and colored
men and women to exercise the right of citizens of the
United States to vote for nembers of Congress, Presidential
Elector and United States Senators in the State wherein
they reside upon the SAME terms that white men are allowed
to exercise this right in the State.

The Supreme Court affirmed in its Ex Parte Yarbrough
decision of 1884 that "the States in prescribing the qualifi-
cations of voters for the most numerous branch of their own
Legislature do not do this with reference to the election for
members of Congress." . . . . . But simply define "who are to
vote for the popular branch of their own Legislature."

And I know that it is the United States which
prescribes the qualifications of electors of members of Con-
gress and United States Senators. Because I realize that it
is our Federal Constitution and not the Constitutions of the
several States which says that "the Electors in each State
shall have the qualifications requisite for Electors of the
most numerous branch of the State Legislature."

And from something that happened in the State of
Kentucky in the early days of our Republic, I know that
persons can have every one of the qualifications requisite
for Electors of the most numerous branch of the Legislature,
and therefore be legally entitled to vote for members of
Congress in a State, when they do not possess a legal right
to vote for members of the most numerous branch of the
Legislature of the State.

The thing that happened in Kentucky to which I allude
is this: This State was admitted into the union in 1792

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