Is the right to vote one of the privileges or immunities of citizens? I
think the disfranchised ex-rebels, and the ex-state prisoners will all
agree with me, that it is not only one of them, but the one without
which all the others are nothing. Seek first the kingdom of the ballot,
and all things else shall be given thee, is the political injunction.
Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define citizen to be a person, in the
United States, entitled to vote and hold office.
Prior to the adoption of the thirteenth amendment, by which slavery was
forever abolished, and black men transformed from property to persons,
the judicial opinions of the country had always been in harmony with
these definitions. To be a person was to be a citizen, and to be a
citizen was to be a voter.
Associate Justice Washington, in defining the privileges and immunities
of the citizen, more than fifty years ago, said: "they included all such
privileges as were fundamental in their nature. And among them is the
right to exercise the elective franchise, and to hold office."
Even the "Dred Scott" decision, pronounced by the abolitionists and
republicans infamous, because it virtually declared "black men had no
rights white men were bound to respect," gave this true and logical
conclusion, that to be one of the people was to be a citizen and a
voter.
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