The same argument
exactly was made against the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments and without effect. It can be made against any amendment
which can be proposed which deprives the States of any power which
they now possess.
When the Constitution was adopted it is true it did not confer the
right of suffrage upon any class, but left the subject to each
state to regulate in its own way. The members of the House of
Representatives were to be chosen by the people of the several States
and it was simply provided that "the electors in each state shall have
the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch
of the State Legislature." Senators were to be chosen by the State
Legislatures. The President and Vice-President were to be chosen by
electors, who were to be appointed in each state "in such manner as
the Legislature thereof may direct." These were at the time very
wise regulations, for they showed, as James Wilson, a member of the
Constitutional Convention, said, the most friendly disposition toward
the governments of the several States, and they tended to destroy the
seeds of jealousy which might otherwise spring up with regard to the
National Government.
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