without distinctions of race, color, occupation, or sex, is the
only means by which that will can be ascertained. As the world
has advanced into civilization and culture; as mind has risen in
its dominion over matter; as the principle of justice and moral
right has gained sway, and merely physical organized power has
yielded thereto; as the might of right has supplanted the right
of might, so have the rights of women become more fully
recognized, and that recognition is the result of the development
of the minds of men, which through the ages she has polished, and
thereby heightened the lustre of civilization.

It was reserved for our great country to recognize by
constitutional enactment that political equality of all citizens
which religion, affection, and common sense should have long
since accorded; it was reserved for America to sweep away the
mist of prejudice and ignorance, and that chivalric condescension
of a darker age, for in the language of Holy Writ, "The night is
far spent, the day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the work
of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk
honestly as in the day." It may be argued against the proposition
that there still remains upon the statute books of some States
the word "male" to an exclusion; but as the Constitution, in its
paramount character, can only be read by the light of the
established principle, _ita lex Scripta est_, and as the subject
of sex is not mentioned, and the Constitution is not limited
either in terms or by necessary implication in the general rights
of citizens to vote, this right can not be limited on account of
anything in the spirit of inferior or previous enactments upon a
subject which is not mentioned in the supreme law. A different
construction would destroy a vested right in a portion of the
citizens, and this no legislature has a right to do without
compensation, and nothing can compensate a citizen for the loss
of his or her suffrage--its value is equal to the value of life.
Neither can it be presumed that women are to be kept from the
polls as a mere police regulation: it is to be hoped, at least,
that police regulations in their case need not be very active.
The effect of the amendments to the Constitution must be to annul
the power ove