state laws. The states will, of course, in their own constitutions or statutes, declare which of their inhabitants may take a part in choosing members of the popular branch of their local legislatures, and such persons are entitled also to vote for congressmen in that state.

We are thus met by this peculiarity of the organic law, that it nowhere attempts to define what persons may exercise the right of suffrage, nor does it confer upon the general government any such power. In the only instance where provision is made for a popular election, the states are left to designate the individuals who may unite in electing.

§ 208. This fact is a complete answer to the somewhat common notion that United States citizenship implies the right of voting. Nothing can be further from the truth. Not a vote is cast, from one end of the country to the other, by any person in virtue merely of his being a citizen of the United States. The Constitution recognizes the status of citizenship, and provides for admitting foreigners to that condition; but it does not create any class of voters. What the several states may do in this respect, is a matter entirely for their own consideration. It is true, as a fact, that, by the state laws, the great mass of voters for Representatives in Congress are white male citizens of the United States, who have attained the age of twenty-one; but there is no necessity in the Constitution for this practice. A state may deny to some citizens the right of suffrage entirely, as most do to the free negro, and all do to women and minors; or may deny it to persons of foreign birth for a certain period after naturalization, as does New York. Others still may confer the privilege upon persons who are not citizens of the United States, as do a few of the Western states.

§ 209. It is plain, therefore, that mere citizenship of the United States does not involve the right of suffrage. It is also plain that the United States have no power or authority to interfere with the discretion of the states in determining what class of persons possess the "qualifications" for electors. The state laws may throw open the door as wide as possible, or may place any limitation which is not inconsistent with a re

publican form of government. In some, a property qualification has been demanded from the voter, and this practice was almost universal in the earlier years of our government; in a few, a literary or educational qualification is required. In a small number of commonwealths, free negroes are admitted on an equality with whites; in others, only those who possess a certain amount of property; while in most they are rejected altogether.1

§ 210. Notwithstanding the control over this subject which the Constitution gives to the states is so great, so nearly absolute, it is limited by Art. IV. Sec. IV. which says that the United States shall guarantee to every state a republican form of government. It seems to be evident that a state, under pretence of prescribing qualifications for electors, might place the governmental power in the hands of an oligarchy, and might erect such a political fabric as was in no respect republican in form. Should this be done, Congress might undoubtedly interfere in that particular state, and restore a republican form. But to say that Congress may decide by a general rule what regulations governing the status of electors are consistent with the existence of a republican form of government, and may pass laws imposing those regulations upon the several states, is to ignore and destroy not only the spirit, but the very letter of the organic law. To say that a republican form of government implies universal suffrage, or that it forbids the imposition of qualifications which do not directly affect the voter's capacity to judge properly of his political act of voting, is to violate all the fundamental rules of interpretation, to blot out all history, to declare that even the government of the United States is not republican. The plain common sense view which the people have always taken of these provisions is the correct one. The clause "the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature" has been uniformly

1 I hardly need say that I am speaking here of those states alone which remained true to the Union, and which have voluntarily acted upon the question of suffrage; I do not include those states which attempted to secede, and upon which Congress is now imposing universal suffrage.

construed to mean that the states may decide who of their inhabitants shall vote; and it has been left to the good sense of the people of each commonwealth to enlarge the class of voters from time to time as the ideas of popular sovereignty obtained more power.

§ 211. It is certainly, however, an anomaly that the general government of the United States should have no control over the choice of its own delegates in Congress; that it should be powerless to define the qualifications of congressional electors. It must be conceded that this is a defect in our organic law which needs amendment; it was an unnecessary and unfortunate concession to the theory of state sovereignty and independence. One code of rules should certainly prevail throughout the country to regulate the choice of representatives, and this should be the work of Congress, or of the people in its sovereign capacity. The nation should dictate in the selection of its own legislators. The integrity of the separate states is sufficiently guarded by allowing to each an equal voice in the Senate, and by permitting them to appoint Senators, and to control the selection of Presidential electors; the more national branch of Congress, that which comes directly from the people, should be entirely under the management of the one body politic which is represented in the general government.

§ 212. Here I wish to offer a few considerations upon the curious result of the amendment abolishing slavery referred to in §§ 195, 196, and upon the second amendment proposed to obviate that result. This latter amendment which has passed both houses of Congress, and been ratified by several state legislatures, is as follows: Art. XIV. Sec. II. "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way

abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state."

There can be no doubt that the amendment, when adopted, would have the effect to extend the right of suffrage to the class of new-made citizens in the Southern states, and to free negroes in other states, and thus to increase the number of voters for delegates to Congress, by making it directly for the interest of the states to admit the same class of citizens to vote for members of the popular branch of their own local legislatures, and for other state officers.

§ 213. While this plan would, therefore, tend to accomplish the object designed, it would do so by a violation of ideas and principles which are wrought into the very fibre of our government. In regard to matters purely local, and which do not and cannot have a national aspect or influence, it has been the policy of the United States not to interfere with the separate states. The Constitution was framed upon this idea. The people, as the source of all power, gave to their central government exclusive control over all subjects which are national and imperial, and to the separate states a control over all subjects which are local. I deem this policy as essential as is its counterpart, that the several states shall not interfere with the nation in the administration of its appropriate functions. Now the determining who may vote for members of the state legislatures, and for other state officers, is a matter peculiarly local, and the United States should not be able, either directly or indirectly, to dictate rules thereon to the various commonwealths. But, on the other hand, the determining who may vote for Representatives in Congress is a matter purely national, and the several states should not be permitted to dictate rules thereon to the general government.

§ 214. A remedy, therefore, should be proposed, which would not interfere with functions strictly belonging to the states, but would restore to its own control functions that of right belong to the nation. Such a remedy would be an

amendment, not of the clause apportioning representatives, but of the clause relating to the qualifications of congressional electors. An idea might be borrowed from the seceding states themselves and extended to its legitimate results. When the constitution of the so-called Confederacy was formed, the convention perceived the impropriety of permitting the states to have complete power over the choice of congressmen, and although their revolt was based upon an assumed existence of separate state sovereignty, they imposed restrictions upon the discretion of the several commonwealths in the matter of determining who may exercise the right of suffrage.1 In this single instance their example is worthy of imitation; but I would go further and take away the discretion altogether.

§ 215. The amendment suggested is to Art. I. Sec. II. § 1, of the Constitution, so that it should read substantially as follows: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors shall have the qualifications which Congress may from time to time prescribe, and which shall be uniform throughout all the states." The clause in regard to apportionment may be left as it now stands.

Thus should we remedy any unequal consequences of the amendment abolishing slavery; Congress might extend the right of suffrage among all free persons; and at the same time purely state functions would not be interfered with, while a symmetry would be given to the organic law, which, it must be confessed, is now lacking.

§ 216. Other Officers. -- All other officers are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by the President alone, or by the Heads of Departments, or by Courts of Law, (Art. II. Sec. II. § 2), with the exception of the Speaker and other officers of the House, and the President pro tempore and other officers of the Senate, which are chosen by those bodies, respectively. (Art. I. Sec. II. § 5, Sec. III. § 5.)

1 See Appleton's Ann. Am. Cycl. for 1861, p. 158. The article in question restrains the several states from allowing persons of foreign birth and not citizens of the Confederate States, to vote for any officer, civil or political, state or federal.