d March 28, 1884, signed by
Thomas W. Palmer, Henry W. Blair, Elbridge G. Lapham and Henry B.
Anthony. Senators Francis Marion Cockrell and Joseph E. Brown
dissented.[24] The name of Senator James G. Fair does not appear on
either document, but he had signed an adverse report in 1882.

An adverse majority report from the House Judiciary Committee was
presented by William C. Maybury (Mich.) and began thus:

The right of suffrage is not and never has, under our system of
government, been one of the essential rights of citizenship....

What class or portion of the whole people of any State should be
admitted to suffrage, and should, by virtue of such admission,
exert the active and potential control in the direction of its
affairs, was a question reserved exclusively for the
determination of the State.

[The report loses sight entirely of the point that this question was
not and never has been left to "the people" of a State, but that men
alone usurped the right to decide who should be admitted to the
suffrage, arbitrarily excluded women and have kept them excluded.]

Under the influence of a just fear that without suffrage as a
protective power to the newly-acquired rights and privileges
guaranteed to the former slave he might suffer detriment, and
with this dominant motive in view, originated the Fifteenth
Amendment. It will be noted that by this later amendment the
privilege of suffrage is not sought to be _conferred_ on any
class; but an inhibition is placed upon the States from
_excluding_ from the privilege of suffrage any class on account
of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

[The Fifteenth Amendment does not mention the "privilege" of suffrage.
It says expressly, "The _right_ of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged." But whether it be a "right" or
a "privilege," where did the negro get that which the States are
forbidden to deny or abridge, if it does not inhere in citizenship?
The report is incorrect in saying that the State is prohibited from
excluding any "class;" it is only the "males" of any class who are
protected from exclusion. The same right or privilege belongs to
women, but they are not protected in the exercise of it. Women never
have asked Congress to grant them any _new_ right or privilege, but
only to prohibit the States from denying or abridging what is already
theirs