Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-11-16
WOMAN SUFFRAGE.


ly made its way into the court of the Dis
trict of Columbia, where few days since
a decision in the case was rendered. Sara
Spencer and Sarah L. Webster claimed the
right Of registration and to ballot at the
late election in the territory, and were de-
MED the privilege under the laws of the
district. Accordingly they brought an
action against the officers experimenting
| the registration and election, claiming the
elective franchise under the first section OF
| the fourteenth amendment of the Con-
| stitution of the United, States. In his
opinion as delivered, Judge Carter de-
clares that women are advanced to citi-
zenship under the fourteenth amendment.
but this does not in his judgement consti-
tute them voters. He denies that voting
is natural right. He claims that is is a
conventional right under the control of the
sovereign political power. BY the amend
ment referred to women are advanced to
the condition that they may become voters
by an act of Congress authorizing them
to vote. but cannot exercise the privilege
without such congressional action. There
was no dissent in the court from the opin-
ion of Judge Carter. The question will
90 before the Supreme Court of the United
States, after which there is no doubt that
Congress will be called upon to settle it
by either giving or Withholding the neces-
sary Legislation to enable women to exer-
else the elective franchise. The following
from the opinion of Judge Carter is worthy
the notice of our readers.
The claim, as we understand it, is that they
have an inherent right, resting in nature,
and guaranteed by the Constitution in such
wise that it may not be defeated by legislation.
In virtue of this natural and constitutional
right, the plaintiffs ask the court to overrnle
the law, and give effect to rights lying behind
| it and rising superior to its authority.
| The court has listened patiently, and with
| interest to ingenious argument in support of
| the claim, but fail to be convinced of the cor
rectness of the position, whether on authori-
ty or in reason. In all periods and in all
| countries it may be safely assumed that no
privilege has been held to be more exclusive
| ly within the control of conventional power
than the privilege of voting, each State in
turn regulating the subject by the sovereign
political will. The nearest approach to the
natural right to vote, or govern-the two
words in this connection signifying the same
thing-is to be found in those countries and
governments that assert the hereditary right
to rule. The assumption of Divine right
would be a full vindication Of the natural
right commended for here, provided it did not
involve the hereditary obligation to obey.
Again, in other States, embracing the re-
publics, and especially our own, including
the States which make up the United States,
this right has been made to rest upon the au-
thority of political power, defining who may
be an elector and what shall constitute his
qualification, most States in the past period
declaring property as the familiar basis of a
right to vote; others, intelligence; others,
and more numerous, extending the right to
all male persons who have attained the age OF
majority.
While the conditions of the right have varied
in several States, and from time to time modi-
fed in the same State, the right has uniform.
ly rested upon the express authority of the
political power, and made to revolve withir
the limitations of express law.
( Passing from this brief allusion to the politi
cal history of the question to the considera-
ton of its Inherent merits, we do not hesitate
to believe that the legal vindication of the
natural right of all citizens to vote, would a,
this stage of popular intelligence, involve tbs
destruction of civil intelligence. There il
nothing in the history of the past that teache.
us otherwise. There is little in current his
tory that promises better result. The right
of all men to vote is as fully recognized in
the population of our large eenters and cities
as can well be done, short of an absolute
declaration that all men shall vote, irrespec-
tive of qualifications. The result in these
centers is political profiigacy. and violence
verging upon anarchy. The influences work
ing out this result are apparent in the utter
neglect Of all agencies to conserve the virtue,
Integrity, and wisdom of government, and
the appropriation of all agencies calculated to
demoralize and debase the integrity of the
elector. Institutions of learning, calculated
to bring men up to their high state of polti-
cal citizenship, and indispensable to the quail
fcations of the minds and morals of the re-
sponsible voter, are postponed to the agency
Of the dram-shop and gambling-hell; and men
of conscience and capacity are discarded, to
the promotion of vagabonds y power. This
condition demonstrates that the right to vote
might not be, and is not, an absolute natural
right The fact that the practical working of
| the assumed right would be destructive of
civilization is decisive that the right does not
exist.
| Has it become constitutional right under
the provisions of the fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments of the Constitution? which
provide:
Fourteenth amendment-"Sec. l. All per-
sons born or naturalized in the United States,
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, 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 priv
ileges or immunities of citizens of the United
| States"
Fifteenth mendment-"Sec. /. 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"
''Sec. l. The Congress shall have power to
enforce this article by appropriate legislation"
1t will be seen by the first clause of the
fourteenth amendment that the plaintiffs, in
common with all persons born in the United
States, are citizens thereof, and if to make
them citizens is to make them voters, the
plaintiffs may of right vote. 1t will be in
| ferred from what has already been said that