And on page 170:
If the right of suffrage is one of the necessary privileges of a citizen of the United States, then the Constitution and laws of Missouri confining it to men are in violation of the Constitution of the United States, as amended, and consequently void. The direct question is therefore presented, whether all citizens are necessarily voters. The Constitution does not define the privileges and immunities of citizens. For that definition we must look elsewhere. In this case we need not determine what they are, but only whether suffrage is necessarily one of them. It certainly is nowhere made so in express terms. The United States has no voters in the State, of its own creation. The elective officers of the United States are all elected directly or indirectly by State voters.
We had supposed that if there was any question that now, at least, might be regarded as finally settled, both by the late appeal to arms, and by the Constitutional Amendments, it was that of the subordination of State to National authority, over any and all subjects in which the rights and privileges of citizens of the United States are involved. If the amendments do not cover this ground, then they are worse than useless. And yet this decision is a blow at all that constitutes us a Nation. To declare that the United States has no voters—that its officers are all elected by State voters, is to completely reverse the order of things, and subordinate the citizens of the United States to State authority. It will be observed that this decision goes far beyond the ground hitherto and ordinarily claimed by the advocates of what are called "States' Rights."
It has usually been supposed that the States possessed the authority to regulate the exercise of the franchise by the Federal voter, but never before was the right itself denied as appurtenant to Federal citizenship. But now the franchise itself is declared to be non-existent—Federal officers are elected by State voters. The subject itself is wholly withdrawn from Federal supervision and control. Even the amendments can not confer authority over a matter that has no existence. If, then, the United States has no voters in the States, it can properly have nothing to do with the subject of elections. If the citizen of the United States has no right to vote except as a citizen of a State, his Federal citizenship is, of course, subordinated to his State citizenship. It logically follows that much of the recent legislation on this subject by Congress is destitute of authority. If members of the House of Representatives are elected by State voters, as here declared, there is no reason why the States may not, at their pleasure, recall their representatives, or refuse to elect them, as in 1860 the Southern States claimed it to be their right to do; and if a sufficient number can be united in such a movement, the Federal Government will be completely at their mercy. It may also well be doubted how far the Southern States are bound by legislation in which they had no part. Notwithstanding the provision of the XIV. Amendment, that neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; it (as held by the Supreme Court in two cases in 13th Wallace, Chief Justice Chase dissenting), contracts for the sale or hire of slaves effected before emancipation are valid, upon the ground that to take away the remedy for their enforcement would be to impair their obligation, how much less can the owner of a slave be deprived of his property, which forms the subject-matter of that contract, without compensation? If his contract can not be impaired, surely the thing to which that contract relates can not be taken from him,
