Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1867-10-07
apR1yILGRE,n NOT A "lRIGHT.,

The following is from Lyman Trum-
bulls article in opposition to. Congress
sional legislation to extend the privi-
lege of suffrage to all men in every
State
:. It has been suggested that by the
adoption of the Constitutional Amend
ment abolishing slavery, authority over
the suffrage question has been conferred
upon Congress ; but it is difficult to
do with voting, unless it be assumed
that every free citizen must necessarily
be o voter, which would confer suffrage
on every person in the land, without
regard to age, sex or condition; an
assumption which the widest advocate
for the extension of suffrage has never
ventured to make. No such meaning
has been given to the Constitution Of
any of the free States in which slavery
has been prohibited. 1t has, however,
been said that Congress has the same
power to pass q law regulating suffrage
in the States as it had to pass the Civil
Rights Bill, securing all persons in the
land in their rights of person and prop
erty. If this were so, it would only
prove the Civil Rights Act invalid, with
out making another act involving the
same principles constitutional; but in
truth there is a wide difference between
an act securing all free persons in their
civil rights Of person and property,
and one which %confers upon them
the right to vote. The one is founded
on that natural equality which is due to
all and cannot be justly denied to any,
no matter what their age, condition or
sex, for even infants, idiots and lunatics
have the same rights to life, liberty and
property as others; the other is founded
on the law Of the State, supposed to
have its origin in the consent of the
governed, and that consent is qualified
according to the interest and policy Of
those forming the Government. An
abstract, indefeasable right to elect and
be elected was never asserted by any
people. [Bill Stewards organ has as
serted it, If such a right exists it must
be universal, and extend to persons Of
every age, sex, degree and character.
"The law Of natural equality" says
Burlamiqui, prohibits our injuring any
person, and commands the reparation of
damage DONE" The Constitutional
Amendment having abolished slavery,
all persons in the United States were
thereby restored to their natural equal
ity Of rights and obligations, and hence
Congress, under the clause of the
amendment authorizing it to secur
these rights by appropriate legislation,
had authority to pass the Civil
Rights Act, but the power to
choose II Chief Magistrate or other oii-
Ger to exercise dominion over others rs
well as the voter, not being II fundamen-
tai condition Of nature, but a pririiege
conferred by those who constitute the
Government, according rs their inter-
ests or policy dictate. Congress has no
warrant, in the absence Of authority
conferred upon it by the Constitution
under which it alone acts, to say who
shall or shall not vote in n State. The
terms of the amendment to the Consti-
tuition now pending before the States
for ratification, and which was proposed
by Congress since the adoption Of the
one abolishing Slavery, shows ~conclu-
sively that Congress did not suppose
that it had authority under the amend
ment a%bolishing Slavery, or any other
provision ofthe Constitution, to regulate
suffrage in the States because the pend.
ing amendment contains a clause de.
claring that when the right to vote in
any State is denied to any male citizen
twenty-one years.of age, the basis OF
representation from such State shall be
reduced in the proportion which the
number Of such male citizens bears to
the whole number Of male citizens
twenty-one years of age in such State
thereby clearly leaving it TO the State
to deny the right to vote to such Of its
citizens rs it should think proper, sub.
ject to II reduction of its representation
in Congress-"