=Nature of the Elective Franchise.=--The right of suffrage, that is, the right to take part in the choice of public officials, is sometimes said to be a natural and inherent right of the citizen, but in practice no state acts upon such a principle. The better opinion, as well as the almost universal practice, is that suffrage is not at all a matter of right, but a privilege bestowed by the state upon those of its citizens who are qualified to exercise it intelligently and for the public good. No state allows all its citizens to vote; all the states restrict the privilege to those who are at least twenty-one years of age; all confine the privilege to those who are _bona fide_ residents of the community; and some require educational, property, and other qualifications of various kinds. On the other hand, eight states allow aliens who have formally declared their intention of becoming citizens, to vote equally with citizens in all elections.[20] The terms "voter" and "citizen," therefore, are not identical or synonymous. [20] These states are Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and Texas. =Existing Qualifications for Voting.=--In the early days of our history restrictions on the voting privilege were much more numerous and stringent than now. Most of the early constitutions limited the privilege to property owners, and some prescribed religious tests in addition. It is estimated that at the beginning of the nineteenth century not more than one person in twenty had the right to vote, whereas now probably the proportion is two in five. _Federal Restriction._--In the United States the power to prescribe the qualifications for voting in both national and state elections belongs to the individual states, subject only to two provisions: in fixing the suffrage they cannot abridge the privilege (1) on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, or (2) on account of sex. The first provision is found in the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, adopted in 1870, and its purpose was to prevent the states from denying the privilege of suffrage to negroes who by the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, had been made citizens of the United States. The second provision is in the Nineteenth Amendment adopted in 1920. These provisions do not, however, prevent the states from limiting the privilege on other grounds, such as illiteracy, criminality, vagrancy, nonpayment of taxes, and the like.