and counting the votes. All this was properly done by existing
laws, and our right _being made complete by the Constitution, no further
legislation was required in our behalf_. When the State officers
attempted to interpose between us and the ballot-box the State
Constitution or State law, whether ancient or recent, abridging or
denying our equal right to vote with other citizens, we had but to refer
to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the States from enforcing
any such constitutional provision or law, and our rights were complete;
we needed neither Congressional nor State legislation in aid of them.

The opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley, in a case in the United States
Circuit Court in New Orleans (_1 Abb. U.S. Rep. 402_) would seem to be
decisive of this question, although the right involved in that case was
not that of the elective franchise. The learned justice says: "It was
very ably contended on the part of the defendants that the fourteenth
amendment was intended only to secure to all citizens _equal capacities
before the law_. That was at first our view of it. But it does not so
read. The language is: 'No State shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States.' What are the privileges
and immunities of citizens? Are they capacities merely? Are they not
also rights?"

Senator Carpenter, who took part in the discussion of the fourteenth
amendment in the Senate, and aided in its passage, says: "The fourteenth
amendment executes itself in _every_ State of the Union.... It is thus
the will of the United States in every State, and silences every State
Constitution, usage or law which conflicts with it.... And if this
provision does protect the colored citizen, then it protects every
citizen, black or white, male or female.... And all the privileges and
immunities which I vindicate to a colored citizen, I vindicate to our