Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/68

 people by the National Constitution, and one which it is beyond the power of the States to regulate. Therefore, no State has the power to deprive women of the right to vote for Representatives in Congress.

Those who hold that women are already entitled to Federal Suffrage under the National Constitution, further support their claim by a series of decisions as to the citizenship of women and the inherent rights which it carries. They quote especially the case of the United States vs. Kellar. The defendant was indicted by a Federal grand jury in Illinois for illegal voting in a Congressional election, as he never had been naturalized. He and his mother were born in Prussia, but came to the United States when he was a minor, and she married a naturalized citizen. The case was tried in June, 1882, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois, by Associate Justice Harlan of the U. S. Supreme Court, who discharged the defendant. He held that the mother, having become a citizen by marriage while the son was a minor, transferred citizenship to him. In other words she transmitted a Federal Citizenship including the right to vote which she did not herself possess, thus enfranchising a child born while she was an alien. The whole matter was settled not by State but by Federal authority. If a mother can confer this right on a son, why not on a daughter? But why does she not possess it herself? The clause of the National Constitution which established suffrage at the time that instrument was framed, does not mention the sex of the elector.

The argument for Federal Suffrage was presented in a masterly manner before the National Convention of 1889 by U. S. Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.); and it was discussed by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Minor. See present volume, Chap. IX.

From this bare outline of the claim that women already possess Federal Suffrage, or that Congress has authority to confer it without the sanction of the States, readers can continue the investigation. Notwithstanding its apparent equity, the leaders of the National Association, including Miss Anthony herself, felt convinced after the decision against Mrs. Minor that it would be useless to expect from the Supreme Court any inter-