Corfield _vs._ Coryell that the
privileges and immunities conceded by the Constitution of
the United States to citizens in the several States were to
be confined to those which were in their nature fundamental,
and belonged of right to the citizens of all free
governments. Such are the rights of protection of life and
liberty, and to acquire and enjoy property, and to pay no
higher impositions than other citizens, and to pass through
or reside in the State at pleasure, and to enjoy the
elective franchise according to the regulations of the laws
of the State.

Those, according to the decision in Corfield _vs._ Coryell, cited
approvingly by Chancellor Kent, are the rights and immunities of
citizens of the United States. Then comes in the XIV. Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States, which declares that
"all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States," and further, that "no State shall make or enforce any
law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens
of the United States."

Now, sir, I quote from Bouvier's Law Dictionary, under the title
"citizen." He gives what the word means, first in English law,
and then he comes down to American law:

One who, under the Constitution and laws of the United
States, has a right to vote for Representatives in Congress
and other public officers, and who is qualified to fill
offices in the gift of the people.

In the face of authorities like these, who shall deny that the
right to vote is one of those privileges and immunities of
citizenship, or that citizenship itself carries with it that
highest right? Go into literature and you find the same
definition; as, for instance, in the work which I hold in my hand
entitled "Words and their Uses," by R. Grant White. He says:

A citizen is a person who has certain political rights, and
the word is properly used only to imply or suggest the
possession of these rights.

Is it a mere question of privilege or immunity? It is a right
which exists and so it is considered in all the law; so it is
treated in the well-considered decisions on the subject, and by
th