ther subjects
to be regulated by State action and that their decision upon that
question was wise and should not be disturbed. The same argument
exactly was made against the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments and without effect. It can be made against any amendment
which can be proposed which deprives the States of any power which
they now possess.

When the Constitution was adopted it is true it did not confer the
right of suffrage upon any class, but left the subject to each
state to regulate in its own way. The members of the House of
Representatives were to be chosen by the people of the several States
and it was simply provided that "the electors in each state shall have
the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch
of the State Legislature." Senators were to be chosen by the State
Legislatures. The President and Vice-President were to be chosen by
electors, who were to be appointed in each state "in such manner as
the Legislature thereof may direct." These were at the time very
wise regulations, for they showed, as James Wilson, a member of the
Constitutional Convention, said, the most friendly disposition toward
the governments of the several States, and they tended to destroy the
seeds of jealousy which might otherwise spring up with regard to the
National Government. At that time the framers of the Constitution did
not deem it wise to limit in any respect the control of the States
over the subject of suffrage. There was then no uniformity regarding
the suffrage in the several states. A property qualification was
usually prescribed, but the amount of property it was necessary
to hold varied considerably in different states. For instance, in
Maryland all freemen, above 21 years of age, having a freehold of
fifty acres of land in the county in which they resided, and all
freemen having property in the state above the value of thirty pounds
current money and who had resided in the county one year, could vote.
In New Jersey "all inhabitants" of full age worth "fifty pounds,
proclamation money clear estate within that government," could vote.
In New York "every male inhabitant of full age" who had resided within
the county for six months immediately preceding the day of election
could vote if he had been a freeholder possessing a freehold of the
value of twenty pounds within the county or had rented a tenement
therein of the yearly value of forty shillings, and had been rated and