It seems to us that nothing can be clearer or plainer than this, coming to us, as it does, with all the weight and authority of Mr. Madison himself. But it may be asked: If this be so, why was not the question sooner raised? We answer, at that very time, and for nearly twenty years afterward, women did vote, unquestioned and undisputed, in one of the States (New Jersey). The men who framed the Constitution were then living—some of them in this very State; yet we hear no mention of its being unconstitutional, no objection made to it whatever.
It is true that subsequently this provision was omitted (about 1807) in the revisal of the State Constitution (as we think, very unjustly), but the fact remains of the unquestioned exercise of this privilege by women at the very time the Federal Constitution was adopted, and for years afterward. This fact is worth a thousand theories. Again, we think that one of the causes of the popular error on this subject arises from forgetting or overlooking the dual nature of our citizenship.
We are citizens of a State, as well as of the United States. This is alluded to in several of the early cases, and its importance is clearly pointed out. We quote, first, from Talbut vs. Jansen, 3 Dallas, Sup. Ct. Rep., 153 (1795), in which Mr. Justice Patterson says: "The act of the Legislature of Virginia does not apply. Ballard was a citizen of Virginia, and also of the United States. If the Legislature of Virginia pass an act specifying the causes of expatriation and prescribing the manner in which it is to be effected by the citizens of that State, what can be its operation on the citizens of the United States?"
If the act of Virginia affects Ballard's citizenship so far as respects that State, can it touch his citizenship so far as regards the United States? Allegiance to a particular State is one thing; allegiance to the United States is another. Will it be said that the renunciation of allegiance to the former implies or draws after it a renunciation of allegiance to the latter? The sovereignties are different; the allegiance is different; the right, too, may be different. Our situation being new, unavoidably creates new and intricate questions. We have sovereignties moving within a sovereignty.
Judge Cabell, also of the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, alludes to it briefly in the case of Murray vs. McCarty, 2 Munford, 398. He says: "But although the Constitution of the United States has wisely given to the citizens of each State the privileges of a citizen of any other State, yet it clearly recognizes the distinction between the character of a citizen of the United States and a citizen of any individual State, and also of citizens of different States," etc. Or, if a still further and later authority be desired, we have it in the language of Chief-Justice Taney, who says, in the Dred Scott case:
