attack upon their liberties. If Rhode Island can say that a naturalized citizen shall not vote unless possessed of a certain amount of property, any State can, with equal justice, enact a law declaring that only those naturalized citizens who live in brick houses shall vote; a law, equally as binding as the present property qualification in Rhode Island, can be enacted, that only those foreign-born citizens who come over in a Cunarder shall vote. Why not? If a State has a right to deprive one class of citizens of its vote for one cause, it has a right to deprive any other class of its vote for any reason.
The power and the mischief do not stop here. If a State has power over the political rights of a naturalized citizen of the United States, it has like power over the native-born citizen. If a State has power over the franchise of the women citizens of the United States, it also has power over the men citizens. Unjust laws, like curses, go home to roost; they can always be made to plague their enactors. When the rights of any one class of citizens are assailed, a blow is struck against the rights of all. The danger to individual liberty lies in special laws. If States are powerful enough to weaken the National constitution, then are we weak indeed. The safety of the citizen lies in a strong National constitution: it lies in a National centralization of power that shall override the States in their attempt to destroy individual rights.
If the National government has not power over the ballot in the several States, where did the United States Commissioner get his authority to institute proceedings against Miss Anthony for voting in the State of New York? If the ballot is in the control of the States, then is the United States guilty of a high-handed outrage against New York, in the case of the fourteen women who are now bound over for trial in Rochester for voting at the last election. If the control of the franchise is the right of each State as sovereign, then the National law of 1870 in regard to frauds in voting was an unauthorized interference of the United States in a matter belonging solely to the respective States. On the contrary, if the question as to who may vote in any State—exclusive of black men, over whom it is conceded the nation has thrown its ægis of protection—is one of National control, how does it happen that the Judiciary Committee of the present Congress reported adversely upon the petition of the 10,000 naturalized citizens of Rhode Island? If, then, voting is a matter of State control alone, what authority had the United States to prosecute Susan B. Anthony? One of two things is plainly true. Either the United States authorities had no right to prosecute Miss Anthony in the State of New York, or, if they had, then they had the right to regulate suffrage in Rhode Island. If the general government could not extend suffrage to Irishmen in Rhode Island, it could not abolish it for women in New York.
The time has passed when men can take their choice between "State sovereignty" and "centralized power." What State of the thirty-seven has power to make a treaty, to form an alliance, to declare war? Not one, because not one of them is a sovereign State. An attempt would be treason against the Nation. If the general government can not be secure with a diversity of laws in regard to war, or the tariff, in regard to questions of property, how much less secure is it with diverse laws in regard to per-