public policy, or without any name, would prevent it. The only possible things which a resident alien may not do, are, he can not vote or hold office. There need be no mistake about this, and it can be reduced to an absolute certainty. What, pray, does the resident alien acquire by the transmuting process of naturalization? What is the sum total of his citizenship? He acquires the right of suffrage, and the right to hold office, and no other thing under the heavens and the Star-Spangled Banner. Does he acquire these rights by virtue of any word or special provision of our naturalization laws, which annexes suffrage to naturalization as its special perquisite? Not a word of it. Nor is there a word in any act of Congress or law of a State that confers suffrage upon the naturalized American as a thing incident to or consequent upon his act of naturalization. He thereby becomes a citizen, and takes up and enjoys its peculiar and distinguishing right. He gets naturalized for that and for no other purpose. Naturalization confers suffrage, then, because suffrage is a property of citizenship.
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Colored male citizens now vote constitutionally and rightfully, although the word "white "stands as before in most of the State constitutions; and yet they vote in spite of it. Some potent alembic has destroyed the force of this word, although the text remains as of old. We are at once referred to the XV. Amendment for a solution. That has conferred the power of voting upon them, and it is superior to the State constitutions and statutes, and executes itself, as is claimed. I concede, your honors, that if the XV. Amendment does confer suffrage, or remove the exclusion so that colored citizens can vote; if they have derived the franchise from that, then the argument is against me. But, if it does confer it, then judgment must go for me. Let us read it:
You see in a moment this does not confer anything. It uses no words of grant or grace, apt or otherwise, nor does it profess to. It expressly recognizes, as an already existing fact, that the citizens of the United States have the right to vote. The right which shall thus be respected is a right peculiar to the citizen—it is not a personal right, but a political right; and a right to vote, the same one mentioned in the second section of the XIV. Amendment—a right not created or conferred by the XV. Amendment. It could not be, for it existed, and, as I have just said, was spoken of in the XIV. Amendment; so that it must be as old as that at the least. This amendment is a solemn mandate to all concerned not to deny this right, 'because it existed, and because it was of the highest value.
Justice Wylie: It is not to be denied for either of the three reasons mentioned.
Mr. Riddle: Yes, your honor, I have not reached that; I am now only showing that it is a right—a citizen right—and older than the XV. Amendment; but, if your honor intends to infer that, because the right can not be denied in any one of those cases, that, therefore, it may be in all others,