The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1874-04-03

constitution, all citizens are on an
equality; so that no citizen, as a citizen,
can be superior to any other.
therefore, no citizen has a right to
deDar another from exercising and en-
Joying the same rights and privileges
that he or she enjoys. Hence, when
the eolored race were raised from a
state of slavery to q state of citizen
ship in our nation, not all the forces
OF the nation combined could Constitu-
tionally have prevented them-both
men and women-from voting; for in
the act of acknowledgements no distinc-
ton was made between the sexes, but
all alike were emancipated and recog-
nized as citizens of the United States,
(tlle real fact of ircitizenship having
before existed by virtue of their having
been natiye-born subjects ofour Govern
ment.) But fearing that some of the
States might refuse to recognize their
right TO all the privileges aud immuni-
ties of citizens, an amendment was in
serted in the Constitution guaranteeing
W Tic A0AA C@ACACAoC VI al NiOoC
rights, by preventing any State "from
making or enforcing law or regulation
in any way infringing the rights of citi-
zens," and also declaring that no citizen
should be deprived of the right to vote
on account of race, color or previons
condition of seryitude. Thus throwing
around all citizens, male and female,
white and colored, full and sufficient
protection for the exercise of all the
rights of citizenship. How have these
Constitutional provisions been carried
in relation to the colored women citi-
zens? Not one State in the UniOn has
as yet admitted to the ballOt-box one of
its colored women citizens, although no
one will deny that they have the same
right to vote that colored male citizens
have. Why is this? ? For the very rea-
son that they know that if they admit
colored women to the polls they cannot
prevent the white women from voting.
They know full we'll that the same Con-
stitution that guarantees to the colored
women citizens the exercise of the Con-
stitutional right to the ballot also guar
antees to every other citizen the exercise
of the same right. Now, if no citizen is
bound to cringe to a superior, nor party,
for any act of grace as a means of enjoy
ing all the rights and privileges enjoyed
by any other citizen, how can our Su-
preme Court expect to deprive one-half
of the citizens of these United States of
the exercise of their rights of citizen
ship by deciding that women citizens
cannot vote? In other words, that
women citizens have no rights that
men citizens are bound to respect. But
let their decision be what it may in re-
lation to white women, they, land the
whole power of the nation combined" ="
cannot deprive the colored women of the
right of voting.
Thus the question of Woman Suffrage
has become the leading question be-
/ fore the nation; and as the Constitution
guarantees to all citizens alike the
exercise of their rights of citizenship,
without distinction of race, color, or pre-
vious condition, and debars any State
from infringing upon the right of citi-
zens, and as the State of New York has
sought toinfringe that right by prosecut-
ing Susan b. Anthony, citizen of the
! United States, and of the State of New
York, forexercising her right to vote, she
being mature age, and neither an idiot,
lunatic, nor criminal, and therefore ell
titled to the full exercise of her right of
citizenship, we cannot see how the Su-
preme Court can otherwise than decide
in favor of impartial suffrage, and we
declare that the action of the New York
court was arbitrary and unconstitu-
/ tional.