as it is written--"_Lex ita
scripta est_." The true rule of interpretation, says Charles
Sumner, under the National Constitution, especially since its
additional amendments, is that anything for human rights is
constitutional. "No learning in the books, no skill in the
courts, no sharpness of forensic dialectics, no cunning in
splitting hairs, can impair the vigor of the constitutional
principle which I announce. Whatever you enact for human rights
is constitutional, and this is the supreme law of the land,
anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary
notwithstanding."

SUSAN B. ANTHONY said--_Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee_: It
is not argument nor Constitution that you need; you have already
had those. I shall therefore refer to existing facts. Prior to
the war the plan of extending suffrage was by State action, and
it was our boast that the National Constitution did not contain a
word that could be construed into a barrier against woman's right
to vote. But at the close of the war Congress lifted the question
of suffrage for men above State power, and by the amendments
prohibited the deprivation of suffrage to any citizen by any
State. When the XIV. Amendment was first proposed in Congress, we
rushed to you with petitions, praying you not to insert the word
"male" in the second clause. Our best woman-suffrage men, on the
floor of Congress, said to us the insertion of the word there
puts up no new barrier against woman; therefore do not embarrass
us, but wait until the negro question is settled. So the XIV.
Amendment, with the word "male," was adopted. Then, when the XV.
Amendment was presented without the word "sex," we again
petitioned and protested, and again our friends declared to us
that the absence of that word was no hindrance to us, and again
they begged us to wait until they had finished the work of the
war. "After we have freed the negro, and given him a vote, we
will take up your case." But have they done as they promised?
When we come before you, asking protection under the new
guarantees of the Constitution, the same men say to us our only
plan is to wait the action of Congress and State Legislatures in
the adoption of a XVI. Amendment that shall make null and void
the insertion of the word "male