ve been based on this purely partisan, time-serving opinion
of General Bates, that the normal condition of the citizen of the United
States is that of disfranchisement. That only such classes of citizens
as have had special legislative guarantee have a legal right to vote.

And if this decision of Attorney General Bates was infamous, as against
black men, but yesterday plantation slaves, what shall we pronounce upon
Judge Bingham, in the house of Representatives, and Carpenter, in the
Senate of the United States, for citing it against the women of the
entire nation, vast numbers of whom are the peers of those honorable
gentlemen, themselves, in morals!! intellect, culture, wealth,
family--paying taxes on large estates, and contributing equally with
them and their sex, in every direction, to the growth, prosperity and
well-being of the republic? And what shall be said of the judicial
opinions of Judges Carter, Jameson, McKay and Sharswood, all based upon
this aristocratic, monarchial idea, of the right of one class to govern
another?

I am proud to mention the names of the two United States Judges who have
given opinions honorable to our republican idea, and honorable to
themselves--Judge Howe, of Wyoming Territory, and Judge Underwood, of
Virginia.

The former gave it as his opinion a year ago, when the Legislature
seemed likely to revoke the law enfranchising the women of that
territory, that, in case they succeeded, the women would still possess
the right to vote under the fourteenth amendment.

Judge Underwood, of Virginia, in noticing the recent decision of Judge
Carter, of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, denying to
women the right to vote, under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendment,
says;

"If the people of the United States, by amendment of their
constitution, could expunge, without any explanatory or assisting
legislation, an adjective of five letters from all state and local
constitutions, and thereby raise millions of our most ignorant
fellow-citizens to all of the rights and privileges of electors,
why should not the same people, by the same amendment, expunge an
adjective of four letters from the same state and local
constitutions, and thereby raise other millions of more educated
and better informed citizens to equal rights and privileges,
without explanatory or assisting legislation?"

If the fourteenth amendment does not secure to al