members of the House of Representatives, the right of citizens of
the United States, of either sex, above the age of twenty-one
years, to register and to vote for such Representatives shall not
be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on
account of sex.

The argument for the authority of Congress to pass this law is based
partly on Article I of the Federal Constitution:

SECTION 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.

SECTION 4. The time, place and manner of holding elections for
Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by
the Legislature thereof, but the Congress may at any time by law
make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of
choosing Senators.[7]

Congress is here endowed unquestionably with the right to regulate the
election of Representatives. James Madison, one of the framers of the
Constitution, when asked the intention of this clause, in the Virginia
convention of 1788, called to ratify this instrument, answered that
the power was reserved to Congress because "should the people of any
State by any means be deprived of the right of suffrage, it was judged
proper that it should be remedied by the General Government."
[Elliott's Debates, Vol. II, p. 266.]

Again Madison said in _The Federalist_ (No. 54), in speaking of the
enumeration for Representatives:

The Federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great propriety
in the case of our slaves when it views them in the mixed
character of persons and property. This is in fact their true
character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under
which they live; and it will not be denied that these are the
proper criteria; because it is only under the pretext that the
laws have transformed the negroes into subjects of property, that
_a place is disputed them in the computation of numbers_; and it
is admitted that, if the laws were to restore the rights which
have been taken away, _the negroes could no longer be refused an
equal share of representation_.

Therefore, as women _are_ counted in the enumeration on which the
Congressional apportionment