are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the laws.

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, MARCH 30, 1870.

SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Many of the Republican leaders admitted that these amendments might be
construed to include women, but were silenced by the cry of "party
expediency." The fear of defeating the attempt to enfranchise the
colored male citizen made them refuse to add the word "sex" to the
Fifteenth Amendment, which would have placed this question beyond
debate and put an end to the agitation that has continued for thirty
years. The women insisted that the exigency which compelled the
ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment by the various State
legislatures was strong enough to carry it, even with the word "sex"
included. Having failed to gain this point, the National Association
determined to maintain the position that women were already
enfranchised, and embodied it in the call for the Washington convention
of 1872: "All those interested in woman's enfranchisement are invited
to consider the 'new departure'--women already citizens, and their
rights as such secured by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of
the Federal Constitution."

The same position was re-asserted in the resolutions adopted at that
meeting, which declared that "while the Constitution of the United
States leaves the qualifications of electors to the various States, it
nowhere gives them the right to deprive any citizen of the elective
franchise which is possessed by any other citizen; the right to
regulate not including the right to prohibit the franchise;" that
"those provisions of the several State constitutions which exclude
women from the franchise on account of sex, are violative alike of the
letter and spirit of the Federal Constitution;" and that "as the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution have
established the right of women to the elective franchise, we demand of
the present Congress a declaratory