the ground on which women are now excluded—that of sex; and yet can any one doubt that the constitutional right to vote of men would be sustained?
It is worth noticing that the Act of Congress of May 31, 1870, to carry into effect the provisions of the XIV. and XV. Amendments, is entitled, "An Act to enforce the right of citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of this Union."
Our conclusion, stated in a few words, is this: All women are citizens. Every citizen, in the language of Judge Daniel in the Dred Scott case, has "the actual possession and enjoyment or the perfect right of acquisition and enjoyment of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political." The right to prescribe qualifications rests with the States, in the absence of any law of Congress prescribing them. These qualifications involve time of residence, age, and other matters that are entirely within the reach of the citizen by acquisition or lapse of time. Mr. Sumner has demonstrated in a manner that can not be answered that the qualifications thus left for the States to prescribe must be those under which the citizen can become a voter, and can not be such as would permanently exclude him from the right of suffrage.
It has been said that it is not fair for women to take advantage of a right to vote, no matter how clearly given them, which there was no actual intention to give. This objection does not touch the argument we have been making, but it may be well to say a word upon it. The law has so far dealt so unfairly with women that it would seem as if they should not be severely criticised for taking advantage of the law, when, though by mere accident, it happens to favor them. But it is especially to be considered that their claim is in accordance with the whole spirit of the Constitution and in harmony with all the fundamental principles of our Government, while the denial of suffrage to them is in opposition to those principles. If anything is settled in this country as an abstract general principle, it is the right of tax-payers to have a voice in the legislation that is to determine their taxes and in the appointment of the officers who are to levy and expend them, and that the members of the nation should elect its rulers. Our error (and the day is not far distant when we shall all see its absurdity) is in making these fundamental rights the rights of men alone and in denying them to women. The latter have equal intelligence, patriotism, and virtue, and their fidelity to their country has been as well proved as that of men, and it is difficult to see any good reason why they should have no voice in deciding who shall be the rulers of the nation, what its laws, what its taxes and how appropriated, what the policy that is to affect, for good or evil, the business interests that they are becoming more and more largely engaged in. With all this equity in their favor, may they not be allowed, without censure, to avail themselves of a legal right? If the freedom of the slave could have been declared by our judicial tribunals under some guarantee of freedom in the National Constitution, originally intended only for white men, all lovers of freedom would have rejoiced. When Alvan Stewart, thirty years ago, attempted to get such a decision from the supreme court of New Jersey, there was not a cavil heard among the opponents of slavery.