ter of the applicant ( After the date of filing the petition, The applicant renews the declarations made in the petition, and is Med by the curt This examination may be formal d searching, accuring to the standards of the the firm hearing. Examining judges are rey themselves that all the provisions of the law have h, that the applicant has behaved as a man of moral character, is attached to the principles of the Constani f the United States, and weil disposed to the good order tiness of the same. When the court is duly satisfied Poate of naturalization is issued. A large power of dislation is thus conferred upon the court, and there are some ses of Petwing abused by judges personally opposed to the principles expressed by the alien applicants.

The original constitution contained no positive provisions nute g to the right to vote, but left the question to the states for

ion by stipulating that voters for members of the House of Representatives should have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature, and at the same time permitting the state legislatures to decide how presidential electors should be chosen. Accordingly there does not exist in the United States, as in Germany, a national suffrage distinct from the suffrage of the respective states. Thus matters stood until the close of the Civil War, when the Republican party sought to secure its supremacy and enable the newly emancipated negro to protect himself against his former master by forcing the adoption of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amend

ments.

The effect of these provisions, however, was not to create one uniform suffrage throughout the Union, but to leave the regula tion of the matter to the states, subject to the provision that

An applicant must reside at least a year in the state or territory in which he makes application. If he landed after June 29, 1900, he must present a certificate from the Department of Commerce and Labor seewing date of arrival, and the declaration of intention must be tied with the petrin.

- Senators of the United States are to be chosen by the state leg'siatures.

"when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such states, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such states"; and to the further provision that the right of citizens 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.

Notwithstanding these provisions, a uniform manhood suffrage has not been adopted throughout the United States. In four states, women are admitted to the suffrage; in others tax, educational, property, and other qualifications are imposed; and in several states we have the peculiar anomaly of foreigners, who have announced their intention of becoming citizens, being permitted to vote for state and even national officers.1

The various restrictions operate in such a manner as to exclude thousands of adult male citizens, and they are by no means confined to the South. Massachusetts with an educational test, or Pennsylvania with a tax qualification, is legally quite as liable to a reduction of representation as any southern state with a "grandfather" clause in its constitution. Nevertheless, no serious attempt has yet been made to secure an enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Republican party, although pledged in the platforms of 1904 and 1908 to an execution of the constitutional provision in question and in control of all branches of the federal government, has deemed it inexpedient to carry out its campaign promises.2

1 See Readings, p. 143, and below, chap. xxii.

For the Republican platform of 1908, see Readings, pp. 107 ff. Undoubtedly there would be great difficulty in ascertaining the number of voters actually disfranchised by any qualifications.

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