o enslave, as well as to disfranchise both native and foreign
born citizens, was conceded to the States. But the one grand
principle, settled by the war and the reconstruction legislation,
is the supremacy of National power to protect the citizens of the
United States in their right to freedom and the elective
franchise, against any and every interference on the part of the
several States. And again and again, have the American people
asserted the triumph of this principle, by their overwhelming
majorities for Lincoln and Grant. The one issue of the last two
Presidential elections was, whether the XIV. and XV. Amendments
should be considered the irrevocable will of the people; and the
decision was, they shall be--and that it is not only the right,
but the duty of the National government to protect all United
States citizens in the full enjoyment and free exercise of all
their privileges and immunities against any attempt of any State
to deny or abridge. And in this conclusion Republicans and
Democrats alike agree.

Senator FRELINGHUYSEN said--The heresy of State rights has
been completely buried in these amendments, that as amended,
the Constitution confers not only National but State
citizenship upon all persons born or naturalized within our
limits.

The CALL for the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN Convention said--Equal
suffrage has been engrafted on the National Constitution;
the privileges and immunities of American citizenship have
become a part of the organic law.

The NATIONAL REPUBLICAN Platform said--Complete liberty and
exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political, and
public rights, should be established and maintained
throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate State and
Federal legislation.

If these assertions mean anything, it is that Congress should
pass a law compelling the States to protect women in their equal
political rights, and that the States should enact laws making
it the duty of inspectors of election to receive women's votes on
precisely the same conditions they do those of men.

Judge Stanley Matthews--a substantial Ohio Democrat--in his
preliminary speech at the Cincinnati Convention, said most
emphatically:

Th