men, and declaring that the "privileges and immunities" of the citizen shall not be abridged, has secured to women, equally with men, the right of suffrage, unless that conclusion is overthrown by some other provision of the constitution. It is not necessary for the purposes of this argument to claim that this amendment prohibits a state from making or enforcing any law whatever, regulating the elective franchise, or prescribing the conditions upon which it may be exercised. But we do claim that in every republic the right of suffrage, in some form and to some extent, is not only one of the privileges of its citizens, but is the first, most obvious and most important of all the privileges they enjoy; that in this respect _all citizens are equal_, and that the effect of this amendment is, to prohibit the States from enforcing any law which denies this right to any of its citizens, or which imposes any restrictions upon it, which are inconsistent with a republican form of government. Within this limit, it is unnecessary for us to deny that the States may still regulate and control the exercise of the right. The only provisions of the constitution, which it can be contended conflict with the construction which has here been put upon the first section of the fourteenth amendment, are the fifteenth amendment, and the second section of the fourteenth. In regard to the fifteenth amendment, I shall only say, that if my interpretation of the fourteenth amendment is correct, there was still an object to be accomplished and which was accomplished by the fifteenth. The prohibition of any action abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens, contained in the fourteenth amendment, applies only to the States, and leaves the United States government free to abridge the political privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, as such, at its pleasure. By the fifteenth amendment both the United States and the State governments, are prohibited from exercising this power, "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude" of the citizen. The first remark to be made upon the second section of the fourteenth amendment is, that it does not give and was not designed to give to the States any power to deny or abridge the right of any citizen to exercise the elective franchise. So far as it touches that subject, it was designed to be restrictive upon the States. It gives to them no power whatever. It takes away no power, but it gives none, and if the States possess the power to deny or abridge the right of citizens to vote, it must be derived from some other provision of the constitution. I believe none such can be found, which was not necessarily abrogated by the first section of this amendment. It may be conceded that the persons who prepared this section supposed, that, by other parts of the constitution, or in some other way, the States would still be authorized, notwithstanding the provisions of the first section, to deny to the citizens the privilege of voting, as