slavery could not have existed under it; so that
the recognition of facts in the Constitution must not be held to
be a sanction of what is so recognized.

The majority of the committee say that this section implies that
the States may deny suffrage to others than male citizens. If it
implies anything it implies that the States may deny the
franchise to all the citizens. It does not provide that they
shall not deny the right to male citizens, but only provides that
if they do so deny they shall not have representation for them.
So, according to that argument, by the second section of the XIV.
Amendment the power of the States is conceded to entirely take
away the right of suffrage, even from that privileged class, the
male citizens. And thus this rule of "implication" goes too far,
and fritters away all the guarantees of the Constitution of the
right of suffrage, the highest of the privileges of the citizen;
and herein is demonstrated the reason and safety of the rule that
fundamental rights are not to be taken away by implication, but
only by express provision. When the advocates of a privileged
class of citizens under the Constitution are driven to
implication to sustain the theory of taxation without
representation, and American citizenship without political
liberty, the cause must be weak indeed.

It is claimed by the majority that by section 2, article 1, the
Constitution recognizes the power in States to declare who shall
and who shall not exercise the elective franchise. That section
reads as follows:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members
chosen every second year by the people of the several
States, and the electors in each State shall have the
qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous
branch of the State Legislature.

The first clause of this section declares who shall choose the
Representatives--mark the language--"Representatives shall be
chosen by the people of the States," not by the male people; not
by certain classes of the people, but by the people; so that the
construction sought to be given this section, by which it would
recognize the power of the State to disfranchise one half the
citizens, is in direct contravention of the first clause of the
sect