Either the right to vote is one of the "_privileges or immunities_" of
the United States citizen, which the states are forbidden to abridge, or
it is not. If it is, then the women whose votes these defendants
received, being citizens of the United States, and in every other way
qualified to vote, possessed the right to vote, and their votes were
rightfully received. If it is not, then the fourteenth amendment confers
no power upon Congress, to legislate, on the subject of voting in the
States. There is no other clause or provision of that amendment which
can by any possibility confer such power--a power which cannot be
implied, but which, if it exist, must be expressly given in some part of
the Constitution, or clearly needed to carry into effect some power that
is expressly given.
No such power is conferred by the fifteenth amendment. That amendment
operates upon the States and upon the United States, and not upon the
citizen. "The right of citizens of the United States to vote, shall not
be denied or abridged by 'THE UNITED STATES OR BY ANY STATE.'" The terms
"_United States_" and "State," as here used, mean the government of the
United States and of the States. They do not apply to individuals or to
offenses committed by individuals, but only to acts done by the State or
the United States.
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