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All persons born and naturalized in the United States, etc., are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside.

Of course, women, as well as men, are included in this provision, and recognized as citizens. This Amendment further declares:

If the privileges and immunities of a citizen can not be abridged, then, of course, the privileges and immunities of all citizens must be the same. The second section of this Amendment provides that

It can not be denied, that the right or power of a State to exclude a portion of its male citizens from the right to vote, is recognized by this second section; from which it follows, that the right to vote is not one of the "privileges or immunities" which the first section declares shall not be abridged by any State. The right of female suffrage is also inferentially denied by that provision of the second section, above quoted, which provides that when a State shall deny the right to vote to any male citizen,

In the first place, it is to be observed that the basis of representation in a State, which is the whole number of persons—male and female, adults and infants—is only to be reduced when the State shall exclude a portion "of the male inhabitants of such State." The exclusion of female inhabitants, and infants under the age of twenty-one years, does not effect a reduction of the basis of representation in such State. And, again, when a State does exclude a portion of its male inhabitants, etc., the basis of representation in such State is not reduced in the proportion which the number of such excluded males bears to the number of persons—male and female—in such State; but only

This provision assumes that females are no part of the voting population of a State. The XV. Amendment is equally decisive. It recognizes the right—that is, power—of any State to exclude a portion of its citizens from the right to vote, and only narrows this right in favor of a particular class. Its language is:

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This amendment was wholly unnecessary upon the theory that the XIV. Amendment had established or recognized the right of every citizen to vote. It recognizes the right of a State to exclude a portion of its citizens, and only restrains that power so far as to provide that citizens shall not be excluded on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. In every other case, the power of exclusion recognized by the XIV. Amendment is untouched by the XV. It is also worthy of notice that, throughout the XIV.