[Footnote 1: _Bradwell v. Illinois_, 16 Wall., 130.]

The failure of these attempts to turn the Fourteenth Amendment to the
advantage of the woman suffrage movement in no wise checked the
movement or discouraged its leaders. They redoubled their efforts among
the separate states, and worked to such good purpose that the opposition
presently began to take on the aspect of a forlorn hope. "Votes for
Women" became an accomplished fact in many states, and appeared on the
verge of accomplishment in most of the others. Some states, however,
were still holding out when the leaders of the movement, impatient of
further delay and determined to coerce the recalcitrants, took the
matter into the national arena and procured the proposal and
ratification of an amendment to the Federal Constitution. The amendment
provides:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not
be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on
account of sex.

In other words, it adopts verbatim the phraseology of the Fifteenth
Amendment, merely substituting the word "sex" for the words "race,
color, or previous condition of servitude."

So much for the historical background of the so-called Susan B. Anthony
Amendment. It remains to consider just how far the amendment
constitutes an encroachment by the Federal Government on the powers of
the states.

In so far as it affects the qualifications of voters at national