The founders, of course, did not intend the term “person” to apply to all persons: Native Americans were not persons. Their rights were virtually nil. Women were scarcely persons; wives were understood to be “covered” under the civil identity of their husbands in much the same way as children were subject to their parents. Blackstone’s principles held that “the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing.”22 Women are thus the
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