Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/673

Rh Republicans infamous, because it virtually declared "black men had no rights white men were bound to respect," gave this true and logical conclusion, that to be one of the people was to be a citizen and a voter. Chief Judge Daniels said:

Associate Justice Taney said:

Thus does Judge Taney's decision, which was such a terrible ban to the black man while he was a slave, now that he is a person, no longer property, pronounce him a citizen, possessed of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political. And not only the black man, but the black woman, and all women as well. And it was not until after the abolition of slavery, by which the negroes became free men, hence citizens, that the United States Attorney-General Bates rendered a contrary opinion:

Then, to be a citizen of this Republic, is no more than to be a subject of an Empire. You and I, and all true and patriotic citizens must repudiate this base conclusion. We all know that American citizenship, without addition or qualification, means the possession of equal rights, civil and political. We all know that the crowning glory of every citizen of the United States is, that he can either give or withhold his vote from every law and every legislator under the government. Did "I am a Roman citizen," mean nothing more than that I am a "member" of the body politic of the Republic of Rome, bound to it by the reciprocal obligations of allegiance on the one side, and protection on the other? When you, young man, shall travel abroad among the monarchies of the old world, and there proudly boast yourself an "American citizen," will you thereby declare yourself neither more nor less than a "member" of the American nation?

And this opinion of Attorney-General Bates, that a black citizen was not a voter, made merely to suit the political exigency of the Republican party in that transition hour between emancipation and enfranchisement, was no less infamous, in spirit or purpose, than was the decision of Judge Taney, that a black man was not one of the people, rendered in the interest and at the behest of the old Democratic party, in its darkest hour of subjection to the Slave power. Nevertheless, all of the adverse arguments, adverse congressional reports and judicial opinions, thus far, have been based on this purely partisan, time-serving opinion of General Bates, that the normal