The definition of the term “citizen” by Bouvier is:  “One who under the constitution and laws of the United States, has a right to vote for Representatives in Congress, and other public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people.”

By Worcester—­“An inhabitant of a republic who enjoys the rights of a freeman, and has a right to vote for public officers.”

By Webster—­“In the United States, a person, native or naturalized, who has the privilege of exercising the elective franchise, or the qualifications which enable him to vote for rulers, and to purchase and hold real estate.”

The meaning of the word “citizen” is directly and plainly recognized by the latest amendment of the constitution (the fifteenth.)

“The right of the 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.”  This clause assumes that the right of citizens, as such, to vote, is an existing right.

Mr. Richard Grant White, in his late work on Words and their Uses, says of the word citizen:  “A citizen is a person who has certain political rights, and the word is properly used only to imply or suggest the possession of these rights.”

Mr. Justice Washington, in the case of Corfield vs.  Coryell (4 Wash, C.C.  Rep. 380), speaking of the “privileges and immunities” of the citizen, as mentioned in Sec. 2, Art. 4, of the constitution, after enumerating the personal rights mentioned above, and some others, as embraced by those terms, says, “to which may be added the elective franchise, as regulated and established by the laws or constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised.”  At that time the States had entire control of the subject, and could abridge this privilege of the citizen at its pleasure; but the judge recognizes the “elective franchise” as among the “privileges and immunities” secured, to a qualified extent, to the citizens of every State by the provisions of the constitution last referred to.  When, therefore, the States were, by the fourteenth amendment, absolutely prohibited from abridging the privileges of the citizen, either by enforcing existing laws, or by the making of new laws, the right of every “citizen” to the full exercise of this privilege, as against State action, was absolutely secured.

Chancellor Kent and Judge Story both refer to the opinion of Mr. Justice Washington, above quoted, with approbation.

The Supreme Court of Kentucky, in the case of Amy, a woman of color, vs.  Smith (1 Littell’s Rep. 326), discussed with great ability the questions as to what constituted citizenship, and what were the “privileges and immunities of citizens” which were secured by Sec. 2, Art. 4, of the constitution, and they showed, by an unanswerable argument, that the term “citizens,” as there used, was