The only provisions of the constitution, which it can be contended conflict with the construction which has here been put upon the first section of the fourteenth amendment, are the fifteenth amendment, and the second section of the fourteenth.

In regard to the fifteenth amendment, I shall only say, that if my interpretation of the fourteenth amendment is correct, there was still an object to be accomplished and which was accomplished by the fifteenth.  The prohibition of any action abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens, contained in the fourteenth amendment, applies only to the States, and leaves the United States government free to abridge the political privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, as such, at its pleasure.  By the fifteenth amendment both the United States and the State governments, are prohibited from exercising this power, “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” of the citizen.

The first remark to be made upon the second section of the fourteenth amendment is, that it does not give and was not designed to give to the States any power to deny or abridge the right of any citizen to exercise the elective franchise.  So far as it touches that subject, it was designed to be restrictive upon the States.  It gives to them no power whatever.  It takes away no power, but it gives none, and if the States possess the power to deny or abridge the right of citizens to vote, it must be derived from some other provision of the constitution.  I believe none such can be found, which was not necessarily abrogated by the first section of this amendment.

It may be conceded that the persons who prepared this section supposed, that, by other parts of the constitution, or in some other way, the States would still be authorized, notwithstanding the provisions of the first section, to deny to the citizens the privilege of voting, as mentioned in the second section; but their mistake cannot be held to add to, or to take from the other provisions of the constitution.  It is very clear that they did not intend, by this section, to give to the States any such power, but, believing that the States possessed it, they designed to hold the prospect of a reduction of their representation in Congress in terrorem over them to prevent them from exercising it.  They seem not to have been able to emancipate themselves from the influence of the original constitution which conceded this power to the States, or to have realized the fact that the first section of the amendment, when adopted, would wholly deprive the States of that power.