sement of women is in Section 1, Article II, which says:
"Every male citizen of the age of twenty-one years, etc., shall be
entitled to vote."

But I submit that in view of the explicit assertions of the equal right
of the whole people, both in the preamble and previous article of the
constitution, this omission of the adjective "female" should not be
construed into a denial; but instead should be considered as of no
effect. Mark the direct prohibition, "No member of this State shall be
disfranchised, unless by the law of the land, or the judgment of his
peers." "The law of the land" is the United States Constitution; and
there is no provision in that document which can be fairly construed
into a permission to the States to deprive any class of citizens of
their right to vote. Hence New York can get no power from that source to
disfranchise one entire half of her members. Nor has "the judgment of
their peers" been pronounced against women exercising their right to
vote; no disfranchised person is allowed to be judge or juror--and none
but disfranchised persons can be women's peers. Nor has the legislature
passed laws excluding women as a class on account of idiocy or lunacy;
nor have the courts convicted them of bribery, larceny or any infamous
crime. Clearly, then, there is no constitutional ground for the
exclusion of women from the ballot-box in the State of New York. No
barriers whatever stand today between women and the exercise of their
right to vote save those of precedent and prejudice, which refuse to
expunge the word "male" from the constitution.

The clauses of the United States Constitution cited by our opponents as
giving power to the States to disfranchise any classes of citizens they
please, are contained in Sections 2 and 4, Article I. The second says:

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.

This can not be construed into a concession to the States of the power
to destroy the right to become an elector, but simply to prescribe what
shall be the qualifications, such as competency of intellect, maturity
of age, length of residence, that shall be deemed necessary to enable
them to make an intelligent choice of candidates. If, as our opponents
assert, it is the duty of