In Minor v. Happersett10 it was held that the suffrage is not a right springing from federal citizenship. This doctrine was declared in passing upon the claim made in that case by a woman that because of her federal citizenship she could not constitutionally be disqualified from voting on account of her sex. In passing upon this claim the court admitted that citizenship was not dependent upon sex, but denied that the right of suffrage was necessarily attached to the status of citizenship.11 these Amendments belong to every citizen of the United States. They were universally so regarded prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. In order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity, the political community known as the people of the United .States ordained and established the Constitution of the United States; and every member of that political community was a citizen of the United States. It was that community that adopted in the mode prescribed by the Constitution, the first ten Amendments; and what they had in view by so doing was to make it certain that the privileges and immunities therein specified - the enjoyment of which, the fathers believed, were necessary in order to secure the blessings of liberty - could never be impaired or destroyed by the National Government. ... It does not solve the question before us to say that the first ten Amendments had reference only to the powers of the National Government, and not to the powers of the States. For, if, prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was one of' the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States that they should not be tried for crime in any court organized or existing under national authority except by a jury composed of twelve persons, how can it be that a citizen of the United States may now be tried in a state court for crime, particularly for an infamous crime, by eight jurors, when that Amendment expressly declares that 'no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States?'"

10 21 Wall. 1G2; 22 L. ed. 627.

11 The court say: "Sex has never been made one of the elements of citizenship in the United States. In this respect men have never had an advantage over women. The same laws precisely apply to both. The Fourteenth Amendment did not affect the citizenship of women any more than "it did of men. In this particular, therefore, the rights of Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the Amendment. She has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship. The Amendment prohibited the State, of which she is a citizen, from ibridgiag any of her privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States; but it did not confer citizenship on her. That she had before its adoption. . . . The Amendment did not add to the privileges and immunities of a citizen. It simply furnished an additional guaranty for the protection of such as he already had. No new voters were necessarily made by it. Indirectly it may have had that effect, because it may have increased the number of citizens entitled to suffrage under the Constitution and laws of the States, but it operates for this purpose, if at all, through the States and the state laws, and not directly upon the citizen. It is clear, therefore, we think, that the Constitution has not added the right of suffrage to the privileges and immunities of citizenship as they existed at the time it was adopted." Continuing the court showed that in no case had the suffrage in the States been considered as co-extensive with citizenship, and concluded: "Certainly, if the courts can consider any question as settled, this is one. For nearly ninety years the people have acted upon the idea that the Constitution, when it conferred citizenship did not necessarily confer the right of suffrage."