Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/457

416 choosing the president, Par. 2, Sec. 1, Art. 2, reads thus: "Each State shall appoint in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be entitled in the congress." There is no other authority for the appointment of presidential electors, either in the Constitution of the United States, or in the constitution of any State. The constitution of the State of New York is entirely silent upon the appointment of presidential electors, for the reason that the constitution of the United States declares that they shall be appointed in such manner as the legislature may direct. With the exception of South Carolina, every State in the Union has adopted the plan of choosing presidential electors by ballot, and it is in the power of the legislature of each State to prescribe the qualifications of those who shall be permitted to vote for such electors.

The authority to prescribe the qualifications of those persons in the State of New York who shall be permitted to vote for electors of President and Vice-President of the United States, therefore lies alone in the legislature of this State. That body has power in this respect superior to the State constitution; it rises above the constitution; it is invested with its powers by the Constitution of the United States; it is under national authority, and need in no way be governed by any representative clause which may exist in the State constitution. In prescribing the qualifications of those persons who shall vote for electors, the legislature has power to exclude all persons who cannot read and write. It has power to say that no person unless possessing a freehold estate of the value of two hundred and fifty dollars, shall vote for such electors. It has power to declare that only tax-payers shall vote for such electors, it is even vested with authority to say that no one but church members shall be entitled to vote for electors of President and Vice-President of the United States. The legislature of this State at its next session has even power to cut off the right of all white men to vote for electors at the presidential election next fall. It matters not what qualifications the State itself may have prescribed for electors of State officers, the question who shall vote for president and vice-president is on an entirely different basis, and prescribing the qualifications for such electors lies in entirely different hands. It is a question of national import with which the State (in its constitution) has nothing to do, and over which even congress has no power. The legislature which is to assemble in Albany, the first Tuesday in January next, will have power, by the passage of a simple bill, to secure to the women of this State the right to vote for electors at the presidential election in the fall of 1876, and thus to inaugurate the centennial year by an act of equity and justice that will be in accordance with that part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Shall it not be done?