Samuel Freeman Miller

“ That a government whose essential character is republican, whose executive head and legislative body are both elective, whose numerous and powerful branch of the legislature is elected by the people directly, has no power by appropriate laws to secure this election from the influence of violence, of corruption, and of fraud, is a proposition so startling as to arrest attention and demand the gravest consideration. ”

“ But it is not correct to say that the right to vote for a member of congress does not depend on the constitution of the United States. The office, if it be properly called an office, is created by that constitution, and by that alone. It also declares how it shall be filled, namely, by election. Its language is: 'The house of representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states; and the electors in each state shall have the same qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature.' Article 1, § 2. ”

“ In all cases where the former slave-holding states had not removed from their constitutions the words 'white man' as a qualification for voting, this provision did, in effect, confer on him the right to vote, because, being paramount to the state law, and a part of the state law, it annulled the discriminating word 'white,' and thus left him in the enjoyment of the same right as white persons. And such would be the effect of any future constitutional provision of a state which should give the right of voting exclusively to white people, whether they be men or women. ”

“ For, while it may be true that acts which are mere invasions of private rights, which acts have no sanction in the statutes of a state, or which are not committed by any one exercising its authority, are not within the scope of that amendment, it is quite a different matter when congress undertakes to protect the citizen in the exercise of rights conferred by the constitution of the United States, essential to the healthy organization of the government itself. ”

“ Because there is no express power to provide for preventing violence exercised on the voter as a means of controlling his vote, no such law can be enacted. It destroys at one blow, in construing the constitution of the United States, the doctrine universally applied to all instruments of writing, that what is implied is as much a part of the instrument as what is expressed. ”

“ In absolute governments, where the monarch is the source of all power, it is still held to be important that the exercise of that power shall be free from the influence of extraneous violence and internal corruption. In a republican government, like ours, where political power is reposed in representatives of the entire body of the people, chosen at short intervals by popular elections, the temptations to control these elections by violence and by corruption is a constant source of danger. ”

“ It is as essential to the successful working of this government that the great organisms of its executive and legislative branches should be the free choice of the people, as that the original form of it should be so. ”

“ The frequent failures of the legislatures of the states to elect senators at the proper time, by one branch of the legislature voting for one person and the other branch for another person, and refusing in any manner to reconcile their differences, led congress to pass an act which compelled the two bodies to meet in joint convention, and fixing the day when this should be done, and requiring them so to meet on every day thereafter and vote for a senator until one was elected. ”

“ The proposition that it has no such power is supported by the old argument often heard, often repeated, and in this court never assented to, that when a question of the power of congress arises the advocate of the power must be able to place his finger on words which expressly grant it. ”

“ That right is an exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.' This new constitutional right was mainly designed for citizens of African descent. The principle, however, that the protection of the exercise of this right is within the power of congress, is as necessary to the right of other citizens to vote as to the colored citizen, and to the right to vote in general as to the right to be protected against discrimination. ”

“ If the recurrence of such acts as these prisoners stand convicted of are too common in one quarter of the country, and give omen of danger from lawless violence, the free use of money in elections, arising from the vast growth of recent wealth in other quarters, presents equal cause for anxiety. ”

“ The court, on the filing of this petition, issued a rule on the marshal, or on any person in whose custody the prisoners might be found, to show cause why the writ of habeas corpus should not issue for their release. ”

“ And the next year the act was amended by making it applicable to the enrollment and resistance made thereto, and adding that if any assault on any officer or other person engaged in making such enrollment shall result in death, it shall be murder and punished accordingly. 13 St. p. 8, § 12. Under this statute Scott was found guilty of murder in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Indiana, and the case was brought here by a certificate of division of opinion. ”

“ The indictments, four in number, on which petitioners were tried, charge in each one all of the defendants with a conspiracy under these sections, directed against a different person in each indictment. ”