Each was prohibited from discriminating in favor of its own
citizens, and against the citizens of other States.
"But the fourteenth amendment prohibits any State from abridging the
privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States, whether
its own citizens or any others. It not merely requires equality of
privileges, but it demands that _the privileges and immunities of all
citizens shall be absolutely unabridged, unimpaired_. (_1 Abbott's U.S.
Rep. 397._)
It will doubtless be urged as an objection to my position (that
citizenship carries with it the right to vote) that it would, in that
case, follow that infants and lunatics, who, as well as adults and
persons of sound mind, are citizens, would also have that right. This
objection, which appears to have great weight with certain classes of
persons, is entirely without force. It takes no note of the familiar
fact, that every legislative provision, whether constitutional or
statutory, which confers any _discretionary_ power, is always confined
in its operation to persons who are _compos mentis_. It is wholly
unnecessary to except idiots and lunatics out of any such statute. They
are excluded from the very nature of the case. The contrary supposition
would be simply absurd.
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