It is not necessary for the purposes of this argument to claim that this
amendment prohibits a state from making or enforcing any law whatever,
regulating the elective franchise, or prescribing the conditions upon
which it may be exercised. But we do claim that in every republic the
right of suffrage, in some form and to some extent, is not only one of
the privileges of its citizens, but is the first, most obvious and most
important of all the privileges they enjoy; that in this respect _all
citizens are equal_, and that the effect of this amendment is, to
prohibit the States from enforcing any law which denies this right to
any of its citizens, or which imposes any restrictions upon it, which
are inconsistent with a republican form of government. Within this
limit, it is unnecessary for us to deny that the States may still
regulate and control the exercise of the right.

The only provisions of the constitution, which it can be contended
conflict with the construction which has here been put upon the first
section of the fourteenth amendment, are the fifteenth amendment, and
the second section of the fourteenth.

In regard to the fifteenth amendment, I shall only say, that if my
interpretation of the fourteenth amendment is correct, there was still
an object to be accomplished and which was accomplished by the
fifteenth. The prohibition of any action abridging the privileges and
immunities of citizens, contained in the fourteenth amendment, applies
only to the States, and leaves the United States government free to
abridge the political privileges and immunities of citizens of the
United States, as such, at its pleasure. By the fifteenth amendment both
the United States and the State governments, are prohibited from
exercising this power, "on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude" of the citizen.