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By this provision, what shall qualify a person to be an elector, is left
entirely to the States. Whoever, in any State, is permitted to vote for
members of the most numerous branch of its legislature, is also
competent to vote for Representatives in Congress. The State might
require a property qualification, or it might dispense with it. It might
permit negroes to vote, or it might exclude them. It might permit women
to vote, or even foreigners, and the federal constitution would not be
infringed. If a State had provided a different qualification for an
elector of Representatives in Congress, from that required of an elector
of the most numerous branch of its Legislature, the power of the federal
constitution might be invoked, and the law annuled. But never was the
idea entertained, that this provision of the Constitution authorizes
Congress to pass laws for the punishment of individuals in the States
for illegal voting, or State returning officers for receiving illegal
votes.
This power, if it exist, must be found in the recent Amendments to the
U.S. Constitution.
I assume that your Honor will hold, as you did yesterday in Miss
Anthony's case, that these amendments do not confer the right to vote
upon citizens of the United States, and therefore not upon women.
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