etermine the qualifications of electors.
They may require the elector to be of a certain age--to have had
a fixed residence--to be of sane mind and unconvicted of
crime,--because these are qualifications or conditions that all
citizens, sooner or later, may attain. But to go beyond this, and
say to one-half the citizens of the State, notwithstanding you
possess all of these qualifications, you shall never vote, is of
the very essence of despotism. It is a bill of attainder of the
most odious character.

A further investigation of the subject will show that the
constitutions of all the States, with the exception of Virginia
and Massachusetts, read substantially alike. "White male
citizens" shall be entitled to vote, and this is supposed to
exclude all other citizens. There is no direct exclusion except
in the two States above named. Now the error lies in supposing
that an enabling clause is necessary at all. The right of the
people of a State to participate in a government of their own
creation requires no enabling clause, neither can it be taken
from them by implication. To hold otherwise would be to
interpolate in the constitution a prohibition that does not
exist.

In framing a constitution, the people are assembled in their
sovereign capacity, and being possessed of all rights and powers,
what is not surrendered is retained. Nothing short of a direct
prohibition can work a deprivation of rights that are
fundamental. In the language of John Jay to the people of New
York, urging the adoption of the constitution of the United
States: "Silence and blank paper neither give nor take away
anything." And Alexander Hamilton says (_Federalist_, No. 83):

Every man of discernment must at once perceive the wide
difference between silence and abolition. The mode and
manner in which the people shall take part in the government
of their creation may be prescribed by the constitution, but
the right itself is antecedent to all constitutions. It is
inalienable, and can neither be bought nor sold nor given
away.

But even if it should be held that this view is untenable, and
that women are disfranchised by the several State constitutions,
directly or by implication, then I say that such prohibitions are