one without which all
the others are nothing_. Seek first the kingdom of the ballot,
and all things else shall be given thee, is the political
injunction.

Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define citizen to be a person,
in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office. And prior
to the adoption of the XIII. Amendment, by which slavery was
forever abolished, and black men transformed from property to
persons, the judicial opinions of the country had always been in
harmony with these definitions. To be a person was to be a
citizen, and to be a citizen was to be a voter. Associate Justice
Washington, in defining the privileges and immunities of the
citizen, more than fifty years ago, said:

They included all such privileges as were fundamental in
their nature. And among them is the right to exercise the
elective franchise and to hold office.

Even the "Dred Scott" decision, pronounced by the Abolitionists
and Republicans infamous, because it virtually declared "black
men had no rights white men were bound to respect," gave this
true and logical conclusion, that to be one of the people was to
be a citizen and a voter. Chief Judge Daniels said:

There is not, it is 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 considered as conferring the actual possession
and enjoyment of the perfect right of acquisition and
enjoyment of an entire equality of privileges, civil and
political.

Associate Justice Taney said:

The words "people of the United States" and "citizens," are
synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both
describe the political body, who, according to our
republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold
the power and conduct the government, through their
representatives. They are what we familiarly call the
sovereign people, and every citizen is one of this people,
and a constituent member of this sovereignty.

Thus does Judge Taney's decision, which was such a terrible ban
to the black man while he was a slave, now that he is a person,
no longer property, pronounce him a citizen, possesse