f
a Republic."

The preamble of the Constitution of the State of New York declares the
same purpose. It says:

"We, the people of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God
for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, do establish
this Constitution."

Here is not the slightest intimation, either of receiving freedom from
the United States Constitution, or of the State conferring the blessings
of liberty upon the people; and the same is true of every one of the
thirty-six State Constitutions. Each and all, alike declare rights
God-given, and that to secure the people in the enjoyment of their
inalienable rights, is their one and only object in ordaining and
establishing government. And all of the State Constitutions are equally
emphatic in their recognition of the ballot as the means of securing the
people in the enjoyment of these rights.

Article 1 of the New York State Constitution says:

"No member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of the
rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the
law of the land, or the judgment of his peers."

And so carefully guarded is the citizen's right to vote, that the
Constitution makes special mention of all who may be excluded. It says:

"Laws may be passed excluding from the right of suffrage all
persons who have been or may be convicted of bribery, larceny or
any infamous crime."

In naming the various employments that shall not affect the residence of
voters--the 3d section of article 2d says "that being kept at any alms
house, or other asylum, at public expense, nor being confined at any
public prison, shall deprive a person of his residence," and hence his
vote. Thus is the right of voting most sacredly hedged about. The only
seeming permission in the New York State Constitution for the
disfranchisement of women is in section 1st of article 2d, which says:

"Every male citizen of the age of twenty-one years, &c., shall be
entitled to vote."

But I submit that in view of the explicit assertions of the equal right
of the whole people, both in the preamble and previous article of the
constitution, this omission of the adjective "female" in the second,
should not be construed into a denial; but, instead, counted as of no
effect. Mark the direct prohibition: "No member of this State shall be
disfranchised, unless by the 'law of the land,' or the judgment of his
peers."