Speech #570036630

Under my second subdivision I deny that Congress has the Constitutional power to deal with this question as now presented. but it is one for the Supreme Court first to determine. If any State. by its constitutional or statutory enactments. has violated any section or clause of the Federal Constitution this is not the forum in which that violation shall be declared. but it is a question which must be heard. tried. and determined in the judicial tribunal constituted for that purpose. and whenever that great court shall declare that the organic or statute law of a State is in conflict with any provision of the Constitution of the United States. then such State must modify its own enactments to conform to the decision of the court or suffer the penalties imposed. The first section of the fourteenth amendment declares that" all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." but mere citizenship does not confer the right to vote. One must be a citizen before the privilege of the elective franchise can be bestowed. but this is not enough. Every woman and child born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen. but not a voter. The United States can make citizens but it can not make qualified voters. This latter power belongs only to the States. without any Federal limitations except that prescribed in the fifteenth amendment that "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 race. color. or previous condition of servitude." Subject to this restriction alone. the States have complete jurisdiction of the whole question of suffrage.