splitting is beyond the comprehension of the average
lay mind and will be viewed by future generations with as much
contempt as is felt by the present in regard to the infamous decision
of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case in 1857. If it decides
anything it is that the right to vote for Congressional
Representatives is a Federal right, vested in all the people by the
National Constitution, and one which it is beyond the power of the
States to regulate. Therefore, no State has the power to deprive women
of the right to vote for Representatives in Congress.

Those who hold that women are already entitled to Federal Suffrage
under the National Constitution, further support their claim by a
series of decisions as to the citizenship of women and the inherent
rights which it carries. They quote especially the case of the _United
States vs. Kellar_. The defendant was indicted by a Federal grand jury
in Illinois for illegal voting in a Congressional election, as he
never had been naturalized. He and his mother were born in Prussia,
but came to the United States when he was a minor, and she married a
naturalized citizen. The case was tried in June, 1882, in the Circuit
Court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois, by
Associate Justice Harlan of the U. S. Supreme Court, who discharged
the defendant. He held that the mother, having become a citizen by
marriage while the son was a minor, transferred citizenship to him. In
other words she transmitted a Federal Citizenship including the right
to vote which she did not herself possess, thus enfranchising a child
born while she was an alien. The whole matter was settled not by State
but by Federal authority.[8] If a mother can confer this right on a
son, why not on a daughter? But why does she not possess it herself?
The clause of the National Constitution which established suffrage at
the time that instrument was framed, does not mention the sex of the
elector.

The argument for Federal Suffrage was presented in a masterly manner
before the National Convention of 1889 by U. S. Senator Henry W. Blair
(N. H.); and it was discussed by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Minor. See
present volume, Chap. IX.

From this bare outline of the claim that women already possess Federal
Suffrage, or that Congress has authority to confer it without the
sanction of the States, readers can continue the investigation.
Notwithstanding its apparent equity, the leaders of the National
As