equally as arbitrary as the distinction on account of stature, or color of hair, or any other physical distinction. These privileges of the citizen exist independent of the Constitution. They are not derived from the Constitution or the laws, but are the means of asserting and protecting rights that existed before any civil governments were formed—the right of life, liberty and property. Says Paine, in his Dissertation upon the Principles of Government:
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right, by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce man to a state of slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another; and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is, in this case. The proposal, therefore, to disfranchise any class of men is as criminal as the proposal to take away property.
In a state of nature, before governments were formed, each person possessed a natural right to defend his liberty, his life and his property from the aggressions of his fellow men. When he enters into the free government he does not surrender that right, but agrees to exercise it, not by brute force, but by the ballot, by his individual voice in making the laws that dispose of, control and regulate those rights. The right to a voice in the government is but the natural right of protection of one's life, liberty and property, by personal strength and brute force, so modified as to be exercised in the form of a vote, through the machinery of a free government. The right of self-protection, it will not be denied, exists in all equally in a state of nature, and the substitute for it exists equally in all the citizens after a free government is formed, for the free government is by all and for all.
The people "ordained and established" the Constitution. Such is the preamble. "We, the people." Can it be said that the people acquire their privileges from the instrument that they themselves establish? Does the creature extend rights, privileges and immunities to the creator? No; the people retain all the rights which they have not surrendered; and if the people have not given to the Government the power to deprive them of their elective franchise, they possess it by virtue of citizenship. The true theory of this Government, and of all free governments, was laid down by our fathers in the Declaration of Independence, and declared to be "self-evident." "All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving all their just powers from the consent of the governed." Here is the great truth, the vital principle, upon which our Government is founded, and which demonstrates that the right of a voice in the conduct of the government, and the selection of the rulers, is a right and privilege of all citizens. Another of the self-evident truths laid down in that instrument is:
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
