iginal powers of the United
States Constitution guaranteed to them equal rights--the right to vote
and to be voted for. In closing one of his great speeches he said:

I do not hesitate to say that when the slaves of our country became
"citizens" they took their place in the body politic as a component
part of the "people," entitled to equal rights and under the
protection of these two guardian principles: First, that all just
governments stand on the consent of the governed; and second, that
taxation without representation is tyranny; and these rights it is
the duty of Congress to guarantee as essential to the idea of a
republic.

The preamble of the constitution of the State of New York declares the
same purpose. It says: "We, the people of the State of New York,
grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its
blessings, do establish this constitution." Here is not the slightest
intimation either of receiving freedom from the United States
Constitution, or of the State's conferring the blessings of liberty upon
the people; and the same is true of every other State constitution. Each
and all declare rights God-given, and that to secure the people in the
enjoyment of their inalienable rights is their one and only object in
ordaining and establishing government. All of the State constitutions
are equally emphatic in their recognition of the ballot as the means of
securing the people in the enjoyment of these rights. Article I of the
New York State constitution says:

No member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of the
rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the
law of the land, or the judgment of his peers.

So carefully guarded is the citizen's right to vote, that the
constitution makes special mention of all who may be excluded. It says:
"Laws may be passed excluding from the right of suffrage all persons who
have been or may be convicted of bribery, larceny or any infamous
crime."

In naming the various employments which shall not affect the residence
of voters, Section 3, Article II, says "that neither being kept in any
almshouse, or other asylum, at public expense, nor being confined in any
public prison, shall deprive a person of his residence," and hence of
his vote. Thus is the right of voting most sacredly hedged about. The
only seeming permission in the New York State constitution for the
disfranchi