This power, if it exist, must be found in the recent Amendments to the U.S.  Constitution.

I assume that your Honor will hold, as you did yesterday in Miss Anthony’s case, that these amendments do not confer the right to vote upon citizens of the United States, and therefore not upon women.  That decision is the law of this case.  It follows necessarily from that decision, that these amendments have nothing to do with the right of voting, except so far as that right “is denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

The thirteenth article of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, in Section 1, ordains that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Section 2, ordains that “Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation.”

The fourteenth article of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, ordains in Section 1, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State where they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.  Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws.”

Section five enacts, “The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this Article.”

The fifteenth article of Amendment to the Constitution ordains in its first section, that “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.”

Section two enacts, that “The Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation.”

These are the provisions of the Constitution relied on to support the legislation of Congress now before this Court.  Some features of that legislation may be constitutional and valid.  Whether this be so or not, it is not necessary now to determine.  The question here is, has Congress, by either of these amendments, been clothed with the power, to pass laws to punish inspectors of elections in this State for receiving the votes of women?

The thirteenth amendment simply abolishes slavery, and authorizes such legislation as shall be necessary to make that enactment effectual.

The power in question is not found there.

The fourteenth amendment defines who are citizens of the United States, and prohibits the States from making or enforcing “any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities” of such citizens.