Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/786

752 party to back her demand, as in the case of the negro. She was merely a private individual, and the court contented itself with saying that the right of suffrage when granted would be protected! To which it may be replied, if women ever vote, they will protect themselves; but, if their right should subsequently be denied by the State, the Supreme Court, according to its own rulings in this case, could give no protection, since it declares the right to be wholly within the control of each State. But why should the court require the women citizens of the United States to produce a special grant of the right, when it required nothing of the kind from the negro? Are there two laws in this country, one for the negro, and another for woman? Does the Constitution of the United States recognize or permit class distinctions to be made between its citizens? Yet by this decision, the negro is placed above the woman. He is her superior. His position is above her. For our own part, we decline to accept any such construction of that instrument, knowing that the time will ultimately come when some claim similar to that of Mrs. Minor will meet with proper recognition. To make its inconsistency still greater, the court in this case declares that "allegiance and protection are reciprocal obligations. The very idea of a political community, such as a nation is, implies an association of persons for the promotion of their general welfare. Each one of the persons associated becomes a member of the nation formed by the association. He owes it allegiance and is entitled to its protection," yet in this case that protection is denied. While the negro, then, is thus declared to be a voter, by reason of his citizenship, in every State of the Union, there is no law either of the State or of the Nation, which in terms or by words confers the ballot upon him. The XV. Amendment does not confer it, but treats it as a right already existing, and forbids its deprivation. Likewise the State law assumes its existence, and makes no change, except to conform to the new condition of the negro's citizenship. There is no change in the State laws, except the omission of a word—the word "white"—from the clause "white male citizens," in the State Constitution. But who ever heard of a right being conferred by omission? And yet this change of a single word by the State was an acknowledgment by it of the supremacy of Federal law touching this subject; and was designed to make the State law conform to the Federal law, which declares (XIV. Amendment) that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." This conformity extends, however, only so far as to embrace the negro citizen of the United States, leaving the far larger class of women citizens of the United States still under ban of disfranchisement, in plain violation of the amendment. Under these circumstances, in the case under consideration, the Supreme Court of the United States was asked to interpose its authority, and effect by its decree that which the State should have done, and declare that the word "male" must be dropped, as well as the word "white."

Had this been done, the State law in its entirety would have conformed to the paramount law of the United States, while as it is, it conforms only in part. We are told that slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, not by an enactment expressly adopted for the purpose, but by a decision of the Supreme Court in 1781, that its existence was inconsistent with