rmed citizens to equal
rights and privileges, without explanatory or assisting
legislation?

If the XIV. Amendment does not secure to all citizens the right
to vote, for what purpose was that grand old charter of the
fathers lumbered with its unwieldy proportions? The Republican
party, and Judges Howard and Bingham, who drafted the document,
pretended it was to do something for black men; and if that
something was not to secure them in their right to vote and hold
office, what could it have been? For, by the XIII. Amendment,
black men had become people, and hence were entitled to all the
privileges and immunities of the Government, precisely as were
the women of the country and foreign men not naturalized.
According to Associate Justice Washington, they already had the

Protection of the Government, the enjoyment of life and
liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of
every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety,
subject to such restraints as the Government may justly
prescribe for the general welfare of the whole; the right of
a citizen of one State to pass through or to reside in any
other State for the purpose of trade, agriculture,
professional pursuit, or otherwise; to claim the benefit of
the writ of habeas corpus, to institute and maintain actions
of any kind in the courts of the State; to take, hold, and
dispose of property, either real or personal, and an
exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by
the other citizens of the State.

Thus, you see, those newly-made freed men were in possession of
every possible right, privilege, and immunity of the Government,
except that of suffrage, and hence, needed no constitutional
amendment for any other purpose. What right, I ask you, has the
Irishman the day after he receives his naturalization papers that
he did not possess the day before, save the right to vote and
hold office? And the Chinamen, now crowding our Pacific coast,
are in precisely the same position. What privilege or immunity
has California or Oregon the constitutional right to deny them,
save that of the ballot? Clearly, then, if the XIV. Amendment was
not to secure to black men their right to vote, it di