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with a Constitution which conferred a right to vote for
members of the most numerous branch of its Legislature
upon— "free male citizens," when there were some free
negro, mulatto and Indian men in this State, but Kentucky
adopted a new Constitution in 1799, which conferred a
right to vote for members of the most numerous branch
of its own Legislature upon "free male ciizens, ne-
groes, malattoes and Indians excepted." This deprived
colored men of a legal right to vote for members of
the most numerous branch of the Kentucky Legistature;
but it left them in possession of a legal right to vote for
members of Congress in the State; because it left them in
possession of freeness, masculinity, and all of the other
qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous
branch of the State Legislature, which is all that the Fed-
eral Constitutian required them to possess in order to have
a legal right to vote for members of Congress in the State.

And colored men therefore had a legal right to vote for
members of Congress in the State of Kentucky upon the
same terms as white men from 1799 until 1850, when this
State adopted a Constitution which added "white" to the
list of qualifications requisite for Electors of the most
numerous branch of its own Legislature.

When colored men and white and colored women pos-
sees a legal right to vote for members of Congress, Presi-
dential Electors and United States Senators upon the same
terms as white men in the States of Wyoming, Colorado,
Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Kansas and
Arizona, it is evident that our Federal Constitution confers
the right to vote for the above named federal officers upon
these colored men and white and colored women. if it con-
fers it upon these white men.

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And after the Supreme Court of the United States has
claimed in its Slaughter-House cases decision of 1873, that
citizens of the United States are guaranteed the protection
of Congress against the enforcement of State laws which
deprive them of such rights as "owe their existence to the
Federal Government, its national character, its Constitution
or its laws," by that clause of the 14th Amendment which
says— "No State shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States." Congress cannot refuse or neglect to protect
colored male, and white and colored female citizens of the
United States against the enforcement of State laws which
deprive them of a right to vote for members of Congress,
Presidential Electors or United States Senators, without
holding that the right to vote for these federal offices is not
derived from the Federal Constitution.

And if Congress holds that the right to vote for mem-
bers of Congress, Presidential Electors and United States
Senators is not derived from the Federal Constitution, it
will hold that Congress has no constitution power to make
appropriate laws for the protection of citizens of the United
States in exercising their right to vote for the above named
federal officers. And I think that this would eventually
lead to the distruction of our Federal Government; just as
the Supreme Court of the United States evidently thought
when they said in Ex Parte Yarbrough of 1884—"If this
government is anything more than a mere aggregation of
delegated agents of other States and governments, each of
which is superior to the General Government it MUST have
the power to protect the elections on which its existence
depends from violence and corruption. If it has not this
power it is left helpless before the two great natural and

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