can, when one-half the
people are forever deprived of all participation in its affairs?

ARTICLE VI. The Constitution and the laws of the United
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, shall be
the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State
shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws
of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Constitution tells us, too, who are citizens. The XIV.
Amendment says:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
States.

It has just been decided by the Supreme Court that a foreign born
woman is naturalized by marriage to a native. Therefore, as birth
and marriage secure the right of citizenship to large numbers,
the remaining classes of foreign unmarried women should secure
naturalization papers, that we may all test our right to vote in
the courts. As the subject of naturalization is expressly
withheld from the States, and as the States would clearly have no
right to deprive of the franchise naturalized citizens, among
whom women are expressly included, still more clearly have they
no right to deprive native born women citizens of this right.

The States have the right to regulate but not to prohibit the
elective franchise to citizens of the United States. Thus the
States may determine the qualifications of electors. They may
require the elector to be of a certain age, to have had a fixed
residence, to be of a sane mind, and unconvicted of crime, etc.;
but to go beyond this, and say to one-half the citizens of the
State, notwithstanding you possess all these qualifications, you
shall never vote, is of the very essence of despotism. It is a
bill of attainder of the most odious character.

On this point the Constitution says:

ART. I., Sec. 9. No bill of attainder, or _ex post facto_
law shall be passed.

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States.

No State shall pass any bill of attainder, _ex post facto_
law, impai