strict, provides,
"That all male citizens," etc., "shall be entitled to vote,"
etc., and that this word male excludes women, of course.

To this the plaintiffs reply that the language of the statute
does exclude women, but they say that in the presence of the
first section of the XIV. Amendment, which confers the elective
franchise upon "all persons," this word "male" is as if
unwritten, and that the statute, constitutionally, reads, "That
all citizens shall be entitled to vote." For we contend, your
honors, that although the Congress "has exclusive legislation in
all cases over this District," it can legislate only, as could
the States, from which it was taken. It must legislate in
accordance with American ideas, and can exercise no power not
granted by the Constitution; and that instrument certainly
confers no power to limit the right of suffrage. And so we are at
issue....

As the FIRST proposition of my brief, I contend, _that under our
system the right to vote is a natural right_.

Obviously, government is of right or it is an usurpation. If of
right, it sprang from some right older than itself; and this
older right must have existed in persons (people), in each and
all alike, male and female. And having this right, they used it
to form for themselves a government. Of course, this supposes
that all joined in and consented to the government having the
power to dissent; for, to just the extent that a government got
itself agoing without the free consent of its people, it is
without right. The right of self-government, and from that
springs our right to govern others, is a natural right. This is
the primary idea of American politics, and the foundation of our
Government. This was formulated in the second clause of our great
Declaration, and no man has dared to deny it....

It follows, then, if the right of government is a natural right,
and to be exercised alone by the ballot, that the right to vote
is a natural right. This never has been and never can be
successfully controverted....

I will read from the highest American authority upon our
politico-constitutional questions, partly in support of my
proposition that the right to vote is a natural right, and also
to show that the assumed claim of one part of the people to