t to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside.

And then it says:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of citizens,

Covering the whole broad ground. Whatever may be the privileges
and immunities of citizens are covered and protected by this
clause. This is subsequent to the article commented on there and
changes the spirit of the old Constitution, is inconsistent with
it, repeals it, or modifies it _pro tanto_; or else there would
be no object in the adoption of the XIV. article.

Mr. MERRIMON.--I was just coming to the discussion of that
Amendment. The XIV. Amendment applies to civil rights. As I have
shown, a citizen merely by virtue of citizenship does not enjoy
political rights; neither the right to vote nor the right to hold
office. The manifest object and purpose of the XIV. Amendment was
to secure to all the American people equality of right in the
States, equality of right under the United States, civilly, not
politically; and that is made more manifest when we consider the
second section of the XIV. Amendment. It is in these words:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several
States according to their respective numbers, counting the
whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not
taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the
choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the
United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive
and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male
inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,
and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged,
except for participation in rebellion or other crime, 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.

Thus it appears the amendments recognized the right of the State
itself to regulate the political right to vote. The XV. article
of Amendment still further confirms my view. It provides that