Speech #630398404

Scan the Constitution from the first article to the end and you I iwill find no limitation whatsoever on the States as to the determuination of their internal policies. except in two particularsthat of forbidding the States to establish anything except a republican form of government and that of forbidding them from granting titles of nobility. In the frontier days of the Western States many of them granted suffrage to domiciled residents who only had declared their intention to become citizens. It was good policy where most of the inhabitants were recent immigrants to grant them* the suffrage and thus permit them to express themselves on matters pertaining to the States welfare. as they were the States real citizenry. If old. settled New England. who knew not the policy and the polity of the Western States. had the determination as to the qualification of suffrage for the Western States. they. perchance. would have said that full citizenship should be required before a person should be an elector. Some States have granted limited suffrage to women.