are secured against such abridgment, by this
section? I claim that these terms not only include the right of
voting for public officers, but that they include that right as
pre-eminently the most important of all the privileges and
immunities to which the section refers. Among these privileges
and immunities may doubtless be classed the right to life and
liberty, to the acquisition and enjoyment of property, and to the
free pursuit of one's own welfare, so far as such pursuit does
not interfere with the rights and welfare of others; but what
security has any one for the enjoyment of these rights when
denied any voice in the making of the laws, or in the choice of
those who make, and those who administer them? The possession of
this voice, in the making and administration of the laws--this
political right--is what gives security and value to the other
rights, which are merely personal, not political. A person
deprived of political rights is essentially a slave, because he
holds his personal rights subject to the will of those who
possess the political power. This principle constitutes the very
corner-stone of our Government--indeed, of all republican
government. Upon that basis our separation from Great Britain was
justified. "Taxation without representation is tyranny." This
famous aphorism of James Otis, although sufficient for the
occasion when it was put forth, expresses but a fragment of the
principle, because government can be oppressive through means of
many appliances besides that of taxation. The true principle is,
that all government over persons deprived of any voice in such
government, is tyranny. That is the principle of the Declaration
of Independence. We were slow in allowing its application to the
African race, and have been still slower in allowing its
application to women; but it has been done by the XIV. Amendment,
rightly construed, by a definition of "citizenship," which
includes women as well as men, and in the declaration that "the
privileges and immunities of citizens shall not be abridged."

If there is any privilege of the citizen which is paramount to
all others, it is the right of suffrage; and in a constitutional
provision, designed to secure the most valuable rights of the
citizen, the declaration that the privile