the Constitution of the United States, granting to the people of the
South, who had been disfranchised, the right of suffrage.

Now, what does the right of suffrage do? It carries with it the right
to hold office. Where women have the privileges of voting on the school
question, they are granted the privilege of being school directors,
holding the office of superintendents, and the restriction on them stops
at that point under statute law. If you go a little further you will
find that when the freedmen were enfranchised, and they sent men of
their own color to the House of Representatives, did that body say
"stop!" "we protest, you cannot come in because of illegality"? No. They
were admitted on the face of their credentials because they had first
been granted the right of suffrage. When men of their color went to the
United States Senate and submitted their credentials, they were not
protested against, but they were admitted as members of the United
States Senate on the face of their credentials. And why? Because
the right of suffrage granted to the freedmen of the South under a
constitutional amendment of the nation, carried with it the right of
the men whom we fought to free, and did free, in an awful war, to hold
office in the nation. Now, sir, you must interpret the law somewhat by
the spirit of the times in which you live. That is a mistaken notion
to say that you must always go to the men that made the law to get the
interpretation of it. If that were true, would it not always be wise
for legislators to give their affidavits and place on file their
interpretation of the law they had confirmed, and placed on the statute
books? There are legal gentlemen in this body who will tell you that it
goes for very little when you come to interpret law. And yet you will
find this to be true, that a law must be interpreted somewhat by the
spirit of the time in which you live. Why, twenty years ago, when the
General Conference handed the question of lay delegation down to the