is United States citizenship, was declared, under the
amendments, a voter in every State in the Union. And the Supreme
Court reaffirmed this right in the celebrated slaughter-house
cases (16 Wallace, 71). It said, "The negro, having by the
fourteenth amendment, been declared to be a citizen of the United
States, is thus made a voter in every State in the Union."

But when the loyal women of Missouri, apprehending that "all
persons beneath the flag were made citizens and voters by the
fourteenth amendment," through Mrs. Minor, applied to the Supreme
Court for protection in the exercise of that same right, this
high tribunal, reversing all its former decisions, proclaims
State sovereignty superior to national authority. This it does in
this strange language: "Being born in the United States, a woman
is a person and therefore a citizen"--we are much obliged to them
for that definition of our identity as persons--"but the
constitution of the United States does not confer the right of
suffrage upon any one." And then, in the face of its previous
decisions, the court declared: "The United States has no voters
in the States of its own creation", that the elective officers of
the United States are all elected, directly or indirectly by
State voters. It remands woman to the States for her protection,
thus giving to the State the supreme authority and overthrowing
the entire results of the war, which was fought to maintain
national supremacy over any and all subjects in which the rights
and privileges of the citizens of the United States are involved.

No supreme allegiance, gentlemen of the committee, can be claimed
for or by a government, if it has no citizens of its own
creation, and constitutional amendments cannot confer authority
over matters which have no existence in the constitution. Thus,
our supreme law-givers hold themselves up for obloquy and
ridicule in their interpretation of the most solemn rights of
loyal citizens, and make our constitutional law to mean anything
or nothing as the case may be. You will see, gentlemen, that the
very point which the South contended for as the true one is here
acknowledged to be the true one by the Supreme Court--that of
State rights superior to national authority. The whole of the
recent contest hinged u