thrown around them; "no State shall pass any bill of attainder,"
or "grant any title of nobility." So, too, when it comes to the
practical recognition of these rights at the ballot-box, all are
included. "The House of Representatives shall be composed of
members chosen every second year by the people of the several
States," not by a part--not by the "males"--but simply by "the
people of the several States." The same "people" who ordain and
establish that Constitution as the supreme law of the land, they
are to do the voting, they are to elect. There is not one word as
to sex. The elector, male or female, must be one of the people or
citizens, that is all. But when these electors come to exercise
this right or privilege, then the matter of qualification arises,
the age of the elector, the time, place, and manner of the
exercise of the right, are to be considered, and the convention,
instead of laying down a uniform rule or standard for all the
States, which would have produced change and confusion, thought
it best to leave this feature of it as it already stood in the
several States. But the right itself is secured to the people of
the United States, and in its very nature can not be derived from
any other authority.

We deem it proper, in this connection, to refer to the well-known
fact that women voted in one of the States (New Jersey) down to
the year 1807, when they were unjustly deprived of the right, by
an act of the Legislature of that State. We say unjustly, because
no Legislature can deprive a citizen of a constitutional right,
and the matter has slumbered ever since. The Constitution of New
Jersey, adopted in 1776, used the term "inhabitants" in
describing electors, and under this Constitution women were
recognized as voters, as well as men. In conformity with this
constitutional provision the statute law was so worded as to read
"he or she," in speaking of electors thus affording a
contemporaneous and legislative attestation of the truth of our
statement. This law of 1776 could not, of course, be the source
of authority to any one for voting under a sovereignty not then
in existence, not created until 1789, thirteen years afterward.
Therefore, when the elector, male or female, in New Jersey, voted
for Federal officers in 1789, it