were to be appointed in each state “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.”  These were at the time very wise regulations, for they showed, as James Wilson, a member of the Constitutional Convention, said, the most friendly disposition toward the governments of the several States, and they tended to destroy the seeds of jealousy which might otherwise spring up with regard to the National Government.  At that time the framers of the Constitution did not deem it wise to limit in any respect the control of the States over the subject of suffrage.  There was then no uniformity regarding the suffrage in the several states.  A property qualification was usually prescribed, but the amount of property it was necessary to hold varied considerably in different states.  For instance, in Maryland all freemen, above 21 years of age, having a freehold of fifty acres of land in the county in which they resided, and all freemen having property in the state above the value of thirty pounds current money and who had resided in the county one year, could vote.  In New Jersey “all inhabitants” of full age worth “fifty pounds, proclamation money clear estate within that government,” could vote.  In New York “every male inhabitant of full age” who had resided within the county for six months immediately preceding the day of election could vote if he had been a freeholder possessing a freehold of the value of twenty pounds within the county or had rented a tenement therein of the yearly value of forty shillings, and had been rated and actually paid taxes to the state.  In a number of the States the right to vote was restricted to taxpayers.  In Pennsylvania every freeman of 21 years who had resided in the state two years next before the election and within that time had paid a State or a county tax could vote.

There is today a wide divergence in the qualifications required in the various states to entitle one to vote.  In a few States there are educational qualifications, as in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington and North Carolina.  In some States one cannot vote unless he has paid certain taxes, almost always poll taxes.  In certain States Indians who are not members of any tribe can vote.  And in a number of the States every male of foreign birth, 21 years of age, who has declared his intention to become a citizen according to the naturalization laws of the United States can vote.

These differences exist because the Constitution remains, so far as this subject is concerned, as it was originally adopted, except that the Fifteenth Amendment provides that “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.”  It is, however, an anomalous condition that the right of citizens of the United States to vote remains wholly dependent on the laws of the States, subject only to the restriction that in the regulations the States establish they cannot discriminate against any citizen on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.  If woman suffrage is a sound principle in a republican form of government, and such I believe it to be, there is in my opinion no reason why the States should not be permitted to vote upon an Amendment to the Constitution declaring that no citizen shall be deprived of the right to vote on account of sex.