Either the right to vote is one of the “privileges or immunities” of the United States citizen, which the states are forbidden to abridge, or it is not.  If it is, then the women whose votes these defendants received, being citizens of the United States, and in every other way qualified to vote, possessed the right to vote, and their votes were rightfully received.  If it is not, then the fourteenth amendment confers no power upon Congress, to legislate, on the subject of voting in the States.  There is no other clause or provision of that amendment which can by any possibility confer such power—­a power which cannot be implied, but which, if it exist, must be expressly given in some part of the Constitution, or clearly needed to carry into effect some power that is expressly given.

No such power is conferred by the fifteenth amendment.  That amendment operates upon the States and upon the United States, and not upon the citizen.  “The right of citizens of the United States to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by ‘THE UNITED STATES OR BY ANY STATE.’” The terms “United States” and “State,” as here used, mean the government of the United States and of the States.  They do not apply to individuals or to offenses committed by individuals, but only to acts done by the State or the United States.

But at any rate, the operation of this amendment, and the power given to Congress to enforce it, is limited to offenses committed in respect of depriving persons of the right to vote because of their “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

This is not such a case.  There is no ground for saying that these defendants have committed any offense against the spirit or the letter of the fifteenth amendment, or any legitimate legislation for its enforcement.

Congress cannot make laws to regulate the duties of Inspectors, and it cannot inflict a penalty.

Second.

No offense is stated in the indictment.

The first count in the indictment is for knowingly and wilfully registering as a voter, Susan B. Anthony.  This count is under Section 26 of the Act of May 31, 1870, as amended by the Act of February 28, 1871.

The indictment contains no averment that the defendants were “officers of registration,” and charged with the duty of making a correct registry of voters.  It simply alleges that they were Inspectors of Elections.  What that means, the indictment does not inform us.  It is not an office defined by the Acts of Congress upon which this indictment was found, nor has the Court any information of which it can take notice as to what are the duties of such officers.  In the absence of any claim in the indictment to that effect, the Court will not presume the existence of so important a circumstance against the defendants, and therefore this count of the indictment must fail.

2.  The second count is for the same offense, and obnoxious to the same objection.  The only variation being that the first count charges the illegal registry of one woman, and the second, fourteen.