a defense, a privilege peculiar to that relation, and is not shared in common with all persons whatsoever. It was not personal to a man by reason of his manhood at common law. It is the endowment of the State, peculiar to citizenship. Before the State was, men had certain rights which belonged to them, because they were men. As our declaration of independence declares, men are born with certain inalienable rights. These rights we do not contend the fourteenth amendment empowers the United States to protect. It is only such rights, privileges and immunities as the State or United States confers upon them, because of their citizenship to the United States, that the laws of the United States can insure. The fear that this construction will draw into the United States Courts all cases of offences against the person and property of individuals is groundless. The rights which are inalienable and belong to men as men, and not as citizens, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to be secure in one's person or property is not peculiar to citizenship. Citizens share that with aliens. Offences against the person as well as those against property are cognizable in the State Courts, except where the controversy arises between citizens of dif ferent States, a choice of forum is given, but all such privileges as are peculiar to citizenship, this fourteenth amendment, it seems to me, was adopted to enforce.

And all that the Supreme Court decided in the slaughter-house cases was, that the United States by force of the fourteenth amendment, was not clothed with authority to enforce the rights, common to all

men, but those only peculiar to citizenship. The right to vote is not the common right of all persons resident in Virginia. It is not the right of all citizens of Virginia per se, because a person might be a citizen of Virginia who is not a citizen of the United States, and the constitution of the State confers the right to vote, upon citizens of the United States solely. The demurrer insists upon it, that as the State has passed no law abridging the right of citizens in any particular, the indictment is bad. This view leaves out of consideration the final clause of the fourteenth amendment, which empowers Congress to enforce its provisions by appropriate legislation. The mischief to be prevented by the fourteenth amendment, was the obstruction of the citizens in the exercise of the rights of citizenship, whatever they, from time to time, might be. There is no way, as yet, pointed out by which a State can be punished, and the mischief sought to be prevented, might be flagrant in violation of State law, or without any color of authority under it.

The white people in Virginia might, without law or in spite of it determine that no colored man should vote, and the colored people in South Carolina might, in the same unlawful manner, unite to violently obstruct their white fellow citizens from exercising the elective franchise. The mischief to be prevented would be flagrant, and yet if this demurrer be good, no remedy could be found. Now, Congress, in this view of the case, has thought it appropriate legislation to punish the individuals who commit the wrong, whether under color of State authority, or without pretending to any authority at

all. Who can say this is not appropriate legislation? It remedies the existing evil and a law which accomplishes or tends to accomplish, a purpose required by the constitution to be effected, cannot be said by a judicial tribunal to be inappropriate. (Fugitive Slave Law Act, Sept. 18th, 1850.)

In answer to the objection that these indictments do not allege that the obstruction had, was done on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, it is sufficient to say that the statute under which the indictments are drawn, uses no such language, and it is most generally sufficient in setting out in pleading a statutory offence, to use the words of the statute creating it. But if it be contended that the only power Congress had to pass the statute, was that granted by the fifteenth amendment which prevented discrimination among voters, on ac count of race, color, or previous condition, &c., and authorizes appropriate legislation to prevent such discrimination, there is answer to it in this: that it is impossible to prove, though the fact may be so, if a body of colored men in South Carolina assault and beat fifty white people at the polls, and prevent their voting, and at the same time knock two colored people down, that this was done on account of race or color. Congress thought to cut the thing up by the roots, and enacted what is really and practically the only appropriate legislation, as any person who has seen the efforts to enforce this section must know, that no person shall disturb another at an election, to prevent his exercise of the franchise, and as the greater includes the less, if he can do so from no motive, he cannot do it, because of race

color, or previous condition, &c. And from these considerations we have drawn the following conclusions :

1. That by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution the people have provided a citizenship to the United States direct, positive, paramount, springing from birth within its jurisdiction, or by statutory naturalization.

2. That what the States have claimed to do by virtue of their sovereign power, over their citizens, the United States may do over its citizens by virtue of its sovereign power, and the direct relationship thus established.

3. That while the fourteenth amendment in furtherance of this view declares that no State shall make nor enforce any law contrary to this provision, it likewise declares that Congress shall enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation. And that as Congress cannot punish a State qua State, it is appropriate legislation within the meaning of the statute, to attain its end, i. e., the protection of the citizen in his right to vote, by punishing the individuals who obstruct him in its exercise. And that even under the fifteenth amendment, where experience has shown the obstruction of voters on account of race and color, cannot be, in the judgment of Congress, otherwise prevented, it is appropriate legislation to provide by statute that no such obstruction shall take place at all. And that this construction of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments does not affect the right of the States to define the rights of citizenship, nor does it draw into the jurisdiction of the United States Courts, the question of the inva

sion of the rights of persons or property as such. It concerns only the rights which distinguish persons as citizens, and which they hold in that character."

§ 454. These conflicting decisions leave the question of the true construction of the recent constitutional amendments still open. It is expected that these important and interesting questions will receive the consideration of the Supreme Court of the United States, at an early day, and the country will await the authoritative exposition of that august tribunal, and accept it when it comes as final and conclusive.

§ 454a. Since the publication of the first edition of this work, these questions have been settled by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States cited ante, Sec. 17a.

§ 455. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to specify in detail the various acts of election officers, which will constitute fraud. Without attempting such specification, it will be sufficient here to say that any act on the part of such an officer, by which a legal voter has been designedly and wrongfully deprived of his vote; or by which an illegal vote has been purposely and unjustly received; or by which a false estimate has been imposed upon the public as a genuine canvass, is fraudulent. Fraud, however, cannot be predicated of a mere emotion of the mind disconnected from an act occasioning an injury to some one. There must be a fraudulent transaction, and a party injured thereby. (People vs. Cook, 8 N. Y., 67.)

§ 456. In Littlefield vs. Green, (Brightley's Election Cases, 493,) it appeared that in a precinct containing only about four hundred and fifty legal voters there was actually cast, counted and returned, two thousand, eight hundred and twenty ballots. It also appeared that a large number of names on the poll