TWITCHELL v. BLODGETT. reside at the time of such election."-Art. 2, §1. The evil supposed to exist under this provision was, that an elector might vote anywhere in the election district; and as that district for the election of State officers was the whole State, and for county officers the whole county, he might, for those officers, vote anywhere in the State or county, as he might also, for member of Congress, anywhere in the congressional district; and the usual safeguards, by challenge, etc., were rendered of little value, if he saw fit to vote where personally unknown. The people remedied that evil by an amendment, adopted in 1839, which substituted for the words, "district, county or township," the words, "township or ward"-thus clearly requiring the personal presence of the elector in the township or ward of his residence, as a condition of the right to vote. Thus stood the section at the time the constitutional convention of 1850 met. And here I must remark, that the light to be derived from an examination of the proceedings of constitutional conventions, on questions of constitutional construction, is commonly vague and inconclusive, and not to be allowed, in any case, to control the meaning of unambiguous terms. And I have carefully examined the proceedings of this convention in reference to this provision, and have come to the conclusion that, while a plausible argument may be 'drawn therefrom, that the convention designed to retain the principle introduced by the amendment of 1839, one equally plausible is afforded, that it was designed to be abandoned. I do not present the considerations which lead me to this conclusion here, as they are unimportant to a decision, and I allude to them only to show how little reliance can be safely placed upon such evidence. If, however, by an examination of these proceedings, we had succeeded in ascertaining definitely the intent of the convention, we might still be far from the intent of TWITCHELL Ο. BLODGETT. the people in adopting their work. That intent should be gathered from the words embraced in the instrument as adopted, if those words are free from doubt. The people, in passing upon it, looked only to the clauses. as they then stood, without troubling themselves with the considerations, or the accidental circumstances, that may have brought them to their present form. What we have learned, then, in our examination of the history of this subject is, that there was an evil existing under the old constitution, which was obviated by adopting the principle that the elector should vote in person, in the township or ward of his residence. We are now to ascertain, from the words employed in the clause as it stands, whether this principle is retained, or whether, on the other hand, a design is apparent to discard it. I hazard nothing in saying that the first impression to strike the mind on reading the clause "in which he offers to vote," is, that it is synonymous with "in which he personally presents his ballot." Few persons, if any, would be immediately impressed that the words were ambiguous, and might mean something else. Still fewer would discover in them such an evident purpose to discard the principle of the amendment of 1839, as would be naturally expected to appear if the purpose existed. If I am right in this, then further examination, with a view to find some other and more subtle meaning, ought to be made with extreme caution, lest we deceive ourselves into disregarding the plain and obvious sense for some other, which only ingenuity discovers and suggests. There are certain well-settled rules for the construction of statutes, which no Court can safely disregard. Where the statute is plain and unambiguous in its terms, the Courts have nothing to do but to obey it. They may give a sensible and reasonable interpretation to legislative expressions which are obscure, but they TWITCHELL . BLODGETT. have no right to distort those which are clear and intelligible. The fair and natural import of the terms. employed, in view of the subject matter of the law, is what should govern. Bartlett v. Morris, 9 Port., 266; Wilkinson v. Leland, 2 Pet., 662; Holbrook v. Holbrook, 1 Pick., 250; Pearce v. Atwood, 13 Mass., 342-4; Barker v. Esty, 19 Vt., 131; Ezekiel v. Dixon, 3 Kelley, 146. These rules are especially applicable to constitutions; for the people, in passing upon them, do not examine their clauses with a view to discover a secret or a double meaning, but accept the most natural and obvious import of the words as the meaning designed to be conveyed. They will ratify an instrument in this sense, even though it may have been drawn and adopted by the convention in some other. But the argument for the relator is thus stated by his counsel: "The express and evident object of this section is to prescribe the qualifications of electors. After doing so generally, it is added, in the nature of a proviso, that they shall not be deemed such electors in any other district than that of their residence. The alternative is, any other township or ward: that the elector's vote shall be received and have effect in the township or ward of his residence. It was intended to prohibit the practice of voting for State officers, etc., in some other district, and to prevent soldiers, sailors, etc., influencing and controlling the local government of places where they happen to be, as had often been attempted, on the one hand; and to preserve the full franchise of citizenship at their proper place of residence, on the other. There is no attempt to prescribe anything concerning the single fact of the bodily presence of the person. The substantial provision is, that the elector shall have resided in his township or ward ten days, and not that he shall vote in any TWITCHELL v. BLODGETT. particular manner." And this view is supposed to be so far fortified by adjudged cases, that the Court may well adopt it as the rule of decision here, even if not fully agreeing with it. We are referred to decisions upon laws passed to accomplish the same purpose as this, which have been made by the Courts of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and California, several of which have sustained legislative provisions for taking the votes of electors out of the State. One naturally comes to an examination of these cases, in the expectation of finding them somewhat analagous to the one before us; but a careful examination of them all compels me to say that the constitutions under which these decisions were made were so different from our own that no one of them will support the law here under discussion. I have no hesitation in holding that when the time, place and manner of holding elections are not prescribed by the constitution, they are within the discretion of the Legislature, and the reception of votes from persons actually out of the election districts, or even of the States, may be allowed by statute. Applying this principle to the constitutions of Ohio and Wisconsin, we cannot well doubt the validity of their statutes, and I regard the decisions made to that effect as entirely correct and satisfactory. The New England opinions, on the other hand, which hold similar laws invalid, are based upon constitutional provisions, clearly fixing the locality, and their correctness is equally beyond dispute. No one of these adjudications has any bearing upon the question before us. There is more ground for supposing that the decision of the Supreme Court of Iowa is in point, and if I could find that it was so, I should hesitate long before coming to a conclusion directly opposed to that of so 13 MICH.-L. TWITCHELL . BLODGETT. able a Court. The clause in the constitution of that State under which the question arose, was as follows: "Every white male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of this State six months next preceding the election, and of the county in which he claims his vote sixty days, shall be entitled to vote at all elections which are now, or may be authorized by law." The difference between this clause and that in our constitution, so far as here material, is that ours requires a residence "in the township or ward in which he offers to vote;" and that of Iowa requires an elector to be a resident of "the county in which he claims his vote." There is the difference as to the district, between "township" or "ward" and "county," and the difference between "offering to vote" and "claiming his vote." I shall not stop to remark upon this last difference; for though I agree in the distinction taken by the Supreme Court of Iowa, yet it is not necessary to comment upon, or critically consider the meaning of each, since if the phrase had been "claims. his vote" instead of "offers to vote" in our constitution, I think the result in this case must still have been the same. But the difference between the two constitutions, as to district, is more important in the examination of this law. The law itself, as we are told, is copied from that of Iowa, and must have assumed that the two constitutions were substantially identical. But when we come to put upon the phrase "offers to vote" the same meaning given by the Court in Iowa to the words "claims his vote," we shall find that this meaning, applied to this law, will not sustain it. For there is no provision in this law anywhere that "the soldiers vote shall be received and have effect in the township or ward of his residence." The votes are never to be returned to the township or ward, and never have effect there. As the |