ited States,
or by any State, on account of race, color or previous
condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation.

By reference to the provisions of the original Constitution, here
recited, it appears that prior to the XIII., if not until the
XIV. Amendment, the whole power over the elective franchise, even
in the choice of Federal officers, rested with the States. The
Constitution contains no definition of the term "citizen," either
of the United States, or of the several States, but contents
itself with the provision that "the citizens of each State shall
be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of
the several States." The States were thus left free to place such
restrictions and limitations upon the "privileges and immunities"
of citizens as they saw fit, so far as is consistent with a
republican form of government, subject only to the condition that
no State could place restrictions upon the "privileges or
immunities" of the citizens of any other State, which would not
be applicable to its own citizens under like circumstances. It
will be seen, therefore, that the whole subject, as to what
should constitute the "privileges and immunities" of the citizen
being left to the States, no question, such as we now present,
could have arisen under the original Constitution of the United
States.

But now, by the XIV. Amendment, the United States have not only
declared what constitutes citizenship, both in the United States
and in the several States, securing the rights of citizens to
"all persons born or naturalized in the United States"; but have
absolutely prohibited the States from making or enforcing "any
law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens
of the United States." By virtue of this provision, I insist that
the act of Miss Anthony in voting was lawful. It has never, since
the adoption of the XIV. Amendment, been questioned, and can not
be questioned, that women as well as men are included in the
terms of its first section, nor that the same "privileges and
immunities of citizens" are equally secured to both.

What, then, are the "privileges and immunities of citizens of the
United States" which