Samuel Freeman Miller

“ It would, indeed, be strange if the United States, under the constitutional provisions we have cited, being the owner of unsettled lands larger in area than the most powerful kingdoms of Europe, and having the power 'to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting this territory,' cannot make a law which protects a party in the performance of his existing contract for the purchase of such land, without which the contract fails, and the rights, both of the United States and the purchaser, are defeated. ”

“ Whenever the acts complained of are of a character to prevent this, or throw obstruction in the way of exercising this right, and for the purpose and with intent to prevent it, or to injure or oppress a person because he has exercised it, then, because it is a right asserted under the law of the United States and granted by that law, those acts come within the purview of the statute and of the constitutional power of congress to make such statute. ”

“ The section reads thus: 'If two or more persons conspire to injure or oppress, threaten or intimidate, any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or if two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured,-they shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars and imprisoned not more than ten years ”