In construing a benevolent statute of the government, made for the benefit of its own citizens, inviting and encouraging them to settle on its distant public lands, the words "single man," and "unmarried man" may, especially if aided by the context and other parts of the statute, be taken in a generic sense. Held, accordingly, that the fourth section of the Act of Congress, of September 27th, 1850, granting by way of donation, lands in Oregon Territory, to every white settler or occupant, American half-breed Indians included, embraced within the term single man an unmarried woman.
And the attorney, who carried this question to its final success, is now the Senator elect from Oregon, Hon. J. H. Mitchell, in whom the cause of equal rights to women has an added power on the floor of the United States Senate.
Though the words persons, people, inhabitants, electors, citizens, are all used indiscriminately in the National and State constitutions, there was always a conflict of opinion, prior to the war, as to whether they were synonymous terms, as for instance:
No person shall be a representative who shall not have been seven years a citizen, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he is chosen. No person shall be a senator who shall not have been a citizen of the United States, and an inhabitant of that State in which he is chosen.
But, whatever room there was for a doubt, under the old regime, the adoption of the XIV. Amendment settled that question forever, in its first sentence:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
And the second settles the equal status of all persons—all citizens:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The only question left to be settled now, is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens, and no State has a right to make any new law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several States, is to-day null and void, precisely as is every one against negroes. Is the right to vote one of the privileges or immunities of citizens? I think the disfranchised ex-rebels, and the ex-state prisoners will all agree with me, that it is not only one of them, but the one without which all the others are nothing. Seek first the kingdom of the ballot, and all things else shall be given thee, is the political injunction.
Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define citizen to be a person, in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office. And prior to the adoption of the XIII. Amendment, by which slavery was forever abolished, and black men transformed from property to persons, the judicial opinions of the country had always been in harmony with these definitions. To be a person was to be a citizen, and to be a citizen was to be a voter. Associate Justice Washington, in defining the privileges and immunities of the citizen, more than fifty years ago, said:
They included all such privileges as were fundamental in their nature. And among them is the right to exercise the elective franchise and to hold office.
