And if it was intended to secure these rights only to citizens of the United States, how has
the Constitution here described such persons? Simply as citizens of each State.

But, further: though, as I shall presently more fully state, I do not think the enjoyment of
the elective franchise essential to citizenship, there can be no doubt it is one of the chiefest
attributes of citizenship under the American Constitutions; and the just and constitutional
possession of this right is decisive evidence of citizenship. The provisions made by a
constitution on this subject must therefore be looked to as bearing directly on the question what
persons are citizens under that constitution; and as been decisive, to this extent, that all such
persons as are allowed by the Constitution to exercise the elective franchise, and thus to
participate in the Government of the United States, must be deemed citizens of the United States.

Here, again, the consideration presses itself upon us, that if there was designed to be a
particular class of native-bom persons within the States, deriving their citizenship from the
Constitution and laws of the United States, they should at least have been referred to as those by
whom the President and House of Representatives were to be elected, and to whom they should
be responsible.

Instead of that, we again find this subject referred to the laws of the several States. The
electors of President are to be appointed in such manner as the Legislature of each State may
direct, and the qualifications of electors of members of the House of Representatives shall be the
same as for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.

Laying aside, then, the case of aliens, concerning which the Constitution of the United
States has provided, and confining our view to free persons bom within the several States, we
find that the Constitution has recognized the general principle of public law, that allegiance and
citizenship depend on the place of birth; that it has not attempted practically to apply this
principle by designating the particular classes of persons who should or should not come under it;
that when we turn to the Constitution for an answer to the question, what free persons, born
within the several States, are citizens of the United States, the only answer we can receive from
any of its express provisions is, the citizens of the several States are to enjoy the privileges and
immunities of citizens in every State, and their franchise as electors under the Constitution
depends on their citizenship in the several States. Add to this, that the Constitution was ordained
by the citizens of the several States; that they were "the people of the United States," for whom
and whose posterity the government was declared in the preamble of the Constitution to be made;
that each of them was "a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the
Constitution," within the meaning of those words in that instrument; that by them the government
was to be and was in fact organized; and that no power is conferred on the Government of the
Union to discriminate between them, or to disfranchise any of them — the necessary conclusion
is, that those persons born within the several States, who, by force of their respective
constitutions and laws, are citizens of the State, are thereby citizens of the United States.

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