Amendment of no
effect. There is nothing upon which it can operate. There being
no voters, there is of course no "right to vote," to be
"protected." So that every citizen of the United States is left
completely at the mercy of the State.

We will now consider that clause of the Constitution of the
United States in which, _as Hamilton said_, the right of suffrage
is defined and established for the citizens of the United States;
which, nevertheless, has most strangely been regarded as
conferring upon the States authority to disfranchise them.
Article 1, sec. 2. "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 section, it will be seen, consists
of two clauses, but there _is not a word as to the sex_ of the
elector. He or she must be one of the people, or citizens--that
is all. The "People" elect. They vote in their respective States,
of course; or, to use the words of Chief Justice Marshall, "when
they act, they act in their States." (4 Wheaton, 403.) This first
clause, then, fixes the class of persons to whom belong this
right of suffrage--_Federal suffrage_--not State suffrage. It
would be absurd in the Federal Constitution to undertake to deal
with State suffrage, and it attempts nothing of the kind. The
right of Federal suffrage, then, attaches or belongs to this
class. The subsequent clause is subordinate to this, and relates
not to the right, but to the exercise of it by the voter. In
other words, it prescribes the qualifications of the elector, as
to how he shall exercise the right; the time, place, and manner
of voting, and the age at which the right shall be enjoyed. As to
all these matters, which are included in the subject of
"qualifications," instead of laying down a uniform rule, to be
applicable all over the Union, the convention thought it best to
adopt the regulations on this subject already in force in the
several States. When the Federal elector, therefore, comes to
vote for United States officers, he finds that he must simply
conform to the regulations laid down by the State for State
voters. But this confers