law. As it is, all women who are citizens of the United States or (if aliens) have declared their intention to become Federal citizens, "may vote for all school officers, and upon all question pertaining solely to school matters, and be eligible to any school office (1).”

The Constitution of the State of South Dakota also gives woman the right to vote "at any election held solely for school purposes, and she may hold any office in the State, except as otherwise constitutionally provided for (2)."

In accordance with a provision in the Constitution (3), an act was passed by the legislature March 6, 1890, submitting to the people of South Dakota, at the general election held in November of the same year, the question of striking out the word "male" from the suffrage article of the Constitution. The object of the act was to determine whether there should be any distinction thereafter between the sexes in the right to vote at all elections in the State. The people rejected the proposed amendment, and women are, consequently, denied the right of voting in South Dakota on all public questions excepting such as pertain solely to schools.

A similar amendment proposed to the Constitution of the State of Washington was also rejected by its electors. Idaho has given woman the right to vote at any school district election and to hold any school district office. Montana enlarges the privileges granted woman by (1) Constitution North of Dakota, Art. V, Sec. 128. (2) Constitution of South Dakota, Art. VII, Sec. 9. (3) Id., Art. VII, Sec. 2.

Idaho by qualifying her to hold the office of County Superintendent of Schools and the right, when paying taxes, to vote on all questions submitted to the vote of the taxpayers of the State.

In the city of Boston, women may vote for school committeemen, but for no other public officer; and in many cities in the United States they are eligible to membership on some of the local boards of charities, education, etc.

Women have the same rights in the courts as men. They can also avail themselves of the rights of the homestead law, and other privileges granted citizens. In the sense conveyed in the idea of membership of a nation, women, if born of native-born parents, or parents who have gone through the form of naturalization prescribed by law, are citizens of the United States, but they cannot enjoy the right of suffrage, unless the State, which has exclusive power in the matter, desires to confer it, for the reason that suffrage is not a privilege or an immunity of citizenship as defined by the XIVth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Therefore, where a State Constitution restricts the right of suffrage to male inhab-, itants or citizens, it operates as an absolute bar against the enjoyment of the right by woman. And the Supreme Court of the United States has held that the Constitution and laws of the several States that commit the trust of suffrage to men alone are not necessarily void, for the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right on any one (1).

(1) 21 Wallace, 162.

to

CITIZENS NOT ENTITLED TO VOTE.

The Constitutions of several of the States specially deny the right to vote at an election created thereunder 'every soldier, seaman (1) and marine in the service of the army or navy of the United States," and the act of Congress governing Territorial elections prohibits any "officer, soldier, seaman, mariner, or other person in the army or navy, or attached to troops in the service of the United States" from voting in a Territory, except under specified limitations as to residence (2)." Nor is the suffrage granted to any of the following classes of citizens in any of the States and Territories:

Minors.

Idiots.

Insane.

Paupers.

Convicts.

Polygamists.

Minors are given the right to vote on attaining maturity of years; the insane, whenever restoration to reason shall have been judicially acknowledged; convicts, on the issuance of a pardon from a lawful source or the removal of disability by an act of the legislature or of Congress.

Convicts lose their right to vote because of the hein(1) But Missouri has, singularly enough, overlooked naval seamen in its prohibitory provision. See Constitution of Missouri, 1875, Art. VIII,

Sec. II.

(2) Rev. Stats. U. S., Sec. 1860, Subd. 3.

TH

LIBRA
UNIVER

ousness of their offenses against society. Paupers are deprived of it, because they are a charge and a burden on the State. Idiots are not granted it, because they cannot comprehend its object or meaning and do not understand how to use it.

Polygamy is proscribed in all States and Territories under the laws relating to bigamy, and in each of the several States the penalty for bigamy, which is among the crimes classed as infamous, carries with it disfranchisement. The practice of polygamy among the Mormons in Utah, under cover of their religious faith and in open defiance of the anti-bigamy laws of the United States, resulted in the passage by Congress of a special act depriving polygamists of the right to vote or to hold public office in the Territories, or anywhere under the Federal Government (1).

In some States, persons who have engaged as principals or accessories in a duel are not entitled to vote at any election. In other States, the lack of taxable property or of a specific degree of education, disqualifies a citizen from the right of voting. Insufficient residence is a bar to voting in all States and Territories. And, notwithstanding the provisions of Section 2004 of the Revised Statutes, the several States have the power to deny (1) "That no polygamist, bigamist or any person cohabiting with more than one woman, and no woman cohabiting with any of the persons described as aforesaid in this section, in any Territory or other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, shall be entitled to vote at any election held in such Territory or other place or be eligible for election or appointment to, or be entitled to hold any office or place of public trust, honor or emolument in, under, and for any such Territory or place, or under the United States."-Act of March 22, 1882. 22 Ū. S. Ŝtats., Ch. 47, Sec. 8. p. 31.

}

the right of suffrage to any citizen of the United States on account of age, sex, place of birth, vocation, want of property or intelligence, neglect of civic duties, crime, or other causes not specified in the Fifteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution (1), and this power has been exercised by some of them. An examination of the voting qualifications established by the several States, will show that there are many perplexing differences between them now existing, out of which serious complications and irregularities have sprung.

I. VOTING QUALIFICATIONS IN THE
SEVERAL STATES.

The several States, in their respective relations to the right of suffrage, may be classified as follows:

I.

States restricting the suffrage to male citizens of the United States.

2. States restricting it to male citizens of the United States and male persons of foreign birth who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States.

3. States restricting it to "male citizens of the State." 4. States restricting it to "male citizens."

5.

States restricting it to "male inhabitants."

(1) 1 Sawyer, 374.