In creating the
amending power the framers of the Constitution were careful to
remove it from the people of the nation and to lodge it in the State
sovereignties. That is all that the believers in the doctrine of State
Rights asked. They could not wisely ask, and they did not ask, more.
They only asked that in so important a matter as the amendment of the
fundamental law the minority should not be compelled to submit to a
mere majority, but only to three-fourths of the whole.
If it be assumed simply for the purpose of this discussion, that the
amendment of the Constitution is not wholly a political question, no
one can seriously contend that the amendment the National American
Woman Suffrage Association urges violates any principle of law,
written or unwritten. Mr. Tucker makes no such claim. His argument,
as I understand it, is that woman suffrage by Federal Amendment is a
departure from the original thought of the makers of the Constitution;
that they left the subject of suffrage along with most other subjects
to be regulated by State action and that their decision upon that
question was wise and should not be disturbed.
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