by State Constitutions, and that when provision is made in them extending the right of suffrage to men only, such provisions are binding. It also declared that the United States had no voters in the States of its own creation. But this assertion was false upon the very face of it.
1st. Every enfranchised male slave had the ballot secured him under United States law—a law which annulled all State provisions against color. At the time of ratification of the last amendments, the State of New York possessed a property qualification of $250. The moment these amendments were ratified, that law became dead on the statute book. The New York Legislature did not repeal it. The United States repealed this property prohibition, by creating a class of United States voters out of colored men. So here is one class of United States voters, and a clear mistake on the part of Chief-Justice Waite and the Supreme Court. But the United States has often exercised its power over the ballot more directly than through constitutional amendments; for,
2d. Every Southern man disfranchised because of having taken part in the war, and who has since been granted amnesty, has again been made a voter through United States law; all such men then became United States voters. Here is a second class of United States voters, and a second mistake of Chief Justice Waite and the Supreme Court. It may be answered that the revolted States were in the condition of Territories at the time of this disfranchisement, and therefore under direct control of the National Government. Admitting this, we still know that general amnesty was granted after reconstruction; after State forms of government had again been organized, the nation exercised its power over the ballot by restoring thousands of men to their political rights—to citizenship. And from the general law of amnesty for the rank and file, the leaders in the rebellion were again and again, by special Acts of Congress, re-endowed with the ballot. No amendment was submitted or expected. The authority of Congress thus to restore to these men the use of the ballot was unquestioned.
3d. The naturalized foreigner secures his right to vote under United States law, and can not vote unless he first becomes an United States citizen, or announces his intention of so becoming. In Missouri, Nebraska, and some other States, the declaration of such intention permits him to vote. This is a State regulation, but the fact of his United States citizenship must in some form first exist. In the naturalized man is a third class of United States voters. With one and the same hand he at the same moment picks up his naturalization papers and his ballot. It matters not what the State law may be, the foreigner secures his vote under United States law. And here is a third class of United States voters and a third mistake of Chief-Justice Waite and the Supreme Court.
4th. The Thirty-ninth or Fortieth Congress took a step farther than this, passing a law that all foreigners who had served in, and been honorably discharged from the army, should possess the right to vote, even though they had not previously filed intention of naturalization, thus again proving that Congress itself, without an amendment to the Constitution, or the authorization of States, possessed power over the ballot. If it has this power of securing the use of the ballot to foreigners who have never intimated a desire to become citizens, it surely can enfranchise its own native-born citizens irre-
