XIV. Amendment implies that the several States may restrict the
right of suffrage as to other than male citizens. We may say of
this as we have said of the theory of the committee upon the
effect of the XV. Amendment. It is a proposal to take away from
the citizens guarantees of fundamental rights, by implication,
which have been previously given in absolute terms. The first
section includes "all citizens" in its guarantees, and includes
all the "privileges and immunities" of citizenship and guards
them against abridgment, and under no recognized or reasonable
rule of construction can it be claimed that by implication from
the provisions of the second section the States may not only
abridge but entirely destroy one of the highest privileges of the
citizen to one-half the citizens of the country. What we have
said in relation to the committee's construction of the effect of
the XV. Amendment applies equally to this. The object of the
first section of this amendment was to secure all the rights,
privileges, and immunities of all the citizens against invasion
by the States. The object of the second section was to fix a rule
or system of apportionment for Representatives and taxation; and
the provision referred to, in relation to the exclusion of males
from the right of suffrage, might be regarded as in the nature of
a penalty in case of denial of that right to that class. While
it, to a certain extent, protected that class of citizens, it
left the others where the previous provisions of the Constitution
placed them. To protect the colored man more fully than was done
by that penalty was the object of the XV. Amendment. In no event
can it be said to be more than the recognition of an existing
fact, that only the male citizens were, by the State laws,
allowed to vote, and that existing order of things was recognized
in the rule of representation, just as the institution of slavery
was recognized in the original Constitution, in the article
fixing the basis of representation, by the provision that only
three-fifths of all the slaves ("other persons") should be
counted. There slavery was recognized as an existing fact, and
yet the Constitution never sanctioned slavery, but, on the
contrary, had it been carried out according to its true
construction,