s believed, to be found in the theories of
writers on government, or in any actual experiment
heretofore tried, an exposition of the term 'citizen' which
has not been understood as conferring the actual possession
and enjoyment, or the perfect right of acquisition and
enjoyment, of an entire equality of privileges, civil and
political.

And the supreme court of Kentucky, 1 Little R., 333, says:

No one can, in the correct sense of the term, be a citizen
of a State who is not entitled, upon the terms prescribed by
the institutions of the State, to all the rights and
privileges conferred by those institutions upon the highest
class of society.

These are American authorities, and would seem to settle the
question that the term has not acquired a distinctive American
meaning variant from the well-established general meaning.

It is said, in the next place, and finally, that the second
section of the XIV. Amendment shows clearly that the term
"citizen" could not have been used in the sense of full
citizenship. This objection is the most serious one that the
argument encounters. That section, so far as relates to this
subject, is as follows:

When the right to vote is denied to any of the male
inhabitants of such State being twenty-one years of age and
citizens of the United States, the basis of representation
therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number
of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male
citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

The consideration of this section is perfectly legitimate in the
inquiry as to the meaning of the first section. It is said, with
great force, that here is an implied admission that the States
retained the power to exclude black men from the right to vote,
and it will be asked why, if that right is absolutely conferred
by the first section, and is one of the privileges and immunities
of citizens which no State may abridge, the amendment does not
boldly forbid any such State legislation, instead of merely
imposing certain limitations upon the State that should assume to
exercise such right of exclusion.

Two answers have been made by public writers on the subject which