ed States. Nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of
law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal
protection of the laws._"

Section five enacts, "_The Congress shall have power to enforce by
appropriate legislation, the provisions of this Article._"

The fifteenth article of Amendment to the Constitution ordains in its
first section, that "That the right of citizens of the United States to
vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any
State, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude."

Section two enacts, that "_The Congress shall have power to enforce this
Article by appropriate legislation._"

These are the provisions of the Constitution relied on to support the
legislation of Congress now before this Court. Some features of that
legislation may be constitutional and valid. Whether this be so or not,
it is not necessary now to determine. The question here is, has
Congress, by either of these amendments, been clothed with the power, to
pass laws to punish inspectors of elections in this State for receiving
the votes of women?

The thirteenth amendment simply abolishes slavery, and authorizes such
legislation as shall be necessary to make that enactment effectual.

The power in question is not found there.

The fourteenth amendment defines who are citizens of the United States,
and prohibits the States from making or enforcing "_any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities_" of such citizens.

Either the right to vote is one of the "_privileges or immunities_" of
the United States citizen, which the states are forbidden to abridge, or
it is not. If it is, then the women whose votes these defendants
received, being citizens of the United States, and in every other way
qualified to vote, possessed the right to vote, and their votes were
rightfully received. If it is not, then the fourteenth amendment confers
no power upon Congress, to legislate, on the subject of voting in the
States. There is no other clause or provision of that amendment which
can by any possibility confer such power--a power which cannot be
implied, but which, if it exist, must be expressly given in some part of
the Constitution, or clearly needed to carry into effect some power that
is expressly given.

No such power is conferred by the fifteenth amendment. That amendment
operates upon the States and upon the United Stat