This Court has no general authority to review on error or appeal
the judgments of Circuit Courts in cases within their criminal
jurisdiction.
When a prisoner is held under sentence of a court of the United
States in a matter wholly beyond the jurisdiction of that court, it
is within the authority of the Supreme Court, when the matter is
properly brought to its attention, to inquire into it, and to
discharge the prisoner if it be found that the matter was not
within the jurisdiction of the court below.
Errors of law committed by a Circuit Court which passed sentence
upon a prisoner cannot be inquired into in a proceeding on an
application for habeas corps to test the jurisdiction of the court
which passed sentence.
An indictment which charges in the first count that the
defendants conspired to intimidate A.B., a citizen of African
descent, in the exercise of his right to vote for a member of the
Congress of the United States, and that, in the execution of that
conspiracy, they beat, bruised, wounded, and otherwise
Page 110 U. S. 652
maltreated him, and, in the second count, that they did this on
account of his race, color, and previous condition of servitude, by
going in disguise and assaulting him on the public highway and on
his own premises, contains a sufficient description of an offence
embraced within the provisions of §§ 5508, 5520 Rev.Stat.
In construing the Constitution of the United States, the
doctrine that what is implied is as much a part of the instrument
as what is expressed is a necessity by reason of the inherent
inability to put all derivative powers into words.
§ 4 of article I of the Constitution, which declares that
"[t]he times, places, and manner of holding elections for
senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each State by
the legislature thereof, but the Congress may at any time make or
alter such regulation, except as to the place of choosing
senators,"
adopts the State qualification as the federal qualification for
the voter; but his right to vote is based upon the Constitution,
and not upon the state law, and Congress has the constitutional
power to pass laws for the free, pure and safe exercise of this
right.
Although it is true that the Fifteenth Amendment gives no
affirmative right to the negro to vote, yet there are cases, some
of which are stated by the Court, in which it substantially confers
that right upon him.
United States v. Reese, 92 U. S.
214, qualified and explained.
Petition for a writ of habeas corpus for the release of several
persons convicted, sentenced and imprisoned for conspiracy to
intimidate a person of African descent from voting at an election
for a member of Congress. The facts making the case appear in the
opinion of the court.
MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.
This case originates in this court by an application for a writ
of habeas corpus on the part of Jasper Yarbrough and seven other
persons, who allege that they are confined by the jailer of Fulton
county in the custody of the United States Marshal for the Northern
District of Georgia, and that the trial, conviction, and sentence
in the Circuit Court of the United States for that District, under
which they are held, were illegal, null, and void.
The court, on the filing of this petition, issued a rule on
the
Page 110 U. S. 653
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.
It appears, by the returns made to this rule, that the sentence
of the court, which ordered their imprisonment in the Albany
penitentiary, in the State of New York, at hard labor for the term
of two years, has been so far executed that they are now in that
prison. The rule having been served on John McEwan, superintendent
of the penitentiary, he makes return that he holds the prisoners by
virtue of the sentence of the Circuit Court for the Northern
District of Georgia, and annexes to his return a transcript of the
proceeding in that court.
As this return is precisely the same that the superintendent
would make if the writ of habeas corpus had been served on him, the
court here can determine the right of the prisoners to be released
on this rule to show cause as correctly, and with more convenience
in the administration of justice, than if the prisoners were
present under the writ in the custody of the superintendent; and
such is the practice of this Court.
That this Court has no general authority to review on error or
appeal the judgments of the Circuit Courts of the United States in
cases within their criminal jurisdiction is beyond question; but it
is equally well settled that, when a prisoner is held under the
sentence of any court of the United States in regard to a matter
wholly beyond or without the jurisdiction of that court, it is not
only within the authority of the Supreme Court, but it is its duty,
to inquire into the cause of commitment when the matter is properly
brought to its attention, and if found to be as charged, a matter
of which such court had no jurisdiction, to discharge the prisoner
from confinement.
Ex parte
Kearney, 7 Wheat. 38;
Ex parte
Wells, 18 How. 307;
Ex parte
Lange, 18 Wall. 163;
Ex parte Parks,
93 U. S. 18.
It is, however, to be carefully observed that this latter
principle does not authorize the court to convert the writ of
habeas corpus into a writ of error, by which the errors of law
committed by the court that passed the sentence can be reviewed
here; for if that court had jurisdiction of the party, and of the
offense for which he was tried, and has not exceeded its
Page 110 U. S. 654
powers in the sentence which it pronounced, this Court can
inquire no further.
This principle disposes of the argument made before us on the
insufficiency of the indictments under which the prisoners in this
case were tried.
Whether the indictment sets forth in comprehensive terms the
offense which the statute describes and forbids, and for which it
prescribes a punishment, is in every case a question of law which
must necessarily be decided by the court in which the case
originates, and is therefore clearly within its jurisdiction.
Its decision on the conformity of the indictment to the
provisions of the statute may be erroneous; but, if so, it is an
error of law made by a court acting within its jurisdiction, which
could be corrected on a writ of of error, if such writ was allowed,
but which cannot be looked into on a writ of habeas corpus limited
to an inquiry into the existence of jurisdiction on the part of
that court.
This principle is decided in
Ex
parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 203, and
Ex parte
Parks, 93 U. S. 21.
This, however, leaves for consideration the more important
question -- the one mainly relied on by counsel for petitioners --
whether the law of congress, as found in the Revised Statutes of
the United States, under which the prisoners are held, is warranted
by the constitution, or, being without such warrant, is null and
void.
If the law which defines the offense and prescribes its
punishment is void, the court was without jurisdiction, and the
prisoners must be discharged.
Though several different sections of the Revised Statutes are
brought into the discussion as the foundation of the indictments
found in the record, we think only two of them demand our attention
here, namely, sections 5508 and 5520. They are in the following
language:
"SEC. 5508. If two or more persons conspire to injure, 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,
Page 110 U. S. 655
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; and shall, moreover, be thereafter
ineligible to any office or place of honor, profit, or trust
created by the Constitution or laws of the United States."
"SEC. 5520. If two or more persons in any State or territory
conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any citizen
who is lawfully entitled to vote from giving his support or
advocacy, in a legal manner, towards or in favor of the election of
any lawfully qualified person as an elector for President or
Vice-President, or as a member of the Congress of the United
States, or to injure any citizen in person or property on account
of such support or advocacy, each of such persons shall be punished
by a fine of not less than five hundred nor more than five thousand
dollars, or by imprisonment, with or without hard labor, not less
than six months nor more than six years, or by both such fine and
imprisonment."
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. On the trial, the cases were consolidated, and as each
indictment is in the identical language of all the others, except
as to the name of the person assaulted and the date of the
transaction, the copy which is here presented will answer for all
of them:
"We, the grand jurors of the United States, chosen, selected,
and sworn in and for the Northern district of Georgia, upon our
oaths, present: that heretofore, to-wit, on the twenty-fifth day of
July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
eighty-three, Jasper Yarbrough, James Yarbrough, Dilmus Yarbrough,
Neal Yarbrough, Lovel Streetman, Bold Emory, State Lemmons, Jake
Hayes, and E. H. Green, all late of said Northern district of
Georgia, did, within the said Northern district of Georgia, and
within the jurisdiction of this Court, commit the offense of
conspiracy, for that the said Jasper Yarbrough, James Yarbrough,
Dilmus Yarbrough, Neal Yarbrough,
Page 110 U. S. 656
Lovel Streetman, Bold Emory, State Lemmons, Jake Hayes, and E.
H. Green did then and there, at the time and place aforesaid,
combine, conspire, and confederate together, by force, to injure,
oppress, threaten, and intimidate Berry Saunders, a person of
color, and a citizen of the United States of America of African
descent, on account of his race, color, and previous condition of
servitude, in the full exercise and enjoyment of the right and
privilege of suffrage in the election of a lawfully qualified
person as a member of the Congress of the United States of America,
and because the said Berry Saunders had so exercised the same, and
on account of such exercise, which said right and privilege of
suffrage was secured to the said Berry Saunders by the Constitution
and laws of the United States of America, the said Berry Saunders
being then and there lawfully entitled to vote in said election;
and, having so then and there conspired, the said Jasper Yarbrough,
James Yarbrough, Dilmus Yarbrough, Neal Yarbrough, Lovel Streetman,
Bold Emory, State Lemmons, Jake Hayes, and E. H. Green did
unlawfully, feloniously, and willfully beat, bruise, wound, and
maltreat the said Berry Saunders, contrary to the form of the
statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and
dignity of the United States of America."
"
Second Count. And the jurors aforesaid, upon their
oaths aforesaid, do further present: that heretofore, to-wit, on
the twenty-fifth day of January, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, Jasper Yarbrough, James
Yarbrough, Dilmus Yarbrough, Neal Yarbrough, Lovel Streetman, Bold
Emory, State Lemmons, Jake Hayes, and E. H. Green, all late of said
Northern district of Georgia, within the said Northern district of
Georgia, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, did commit the
offense of conspiracy, for that the said Jasper Yarbrough, James
Yarbrough, Dilmus Yarbrough, Neal Yarbrough, Lovel Streetman, Bold
Emory, State Lemmons, Jake Hayes, and E. H. Green, having then and
there conspired together, by force, to injure, oppress, threaten,
and intimidate Berry Saunders, a person of color, and a citizen of
the United States of America of African descent, on account of his
race, color, and previous condition of servitude, did then and
there unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously go in disguise on the
highway, and on the premises of Berry Saunders, with the intent to
prevent and hinder his free exercise and enjoyment
Page 110 U. S. 657
of the right to vote at an election for a lawfully qualified
person as a member of the Congress of the United States of America,
which said right had then and there been guarantied to the said
Berry Saunders by the Constitution and laws of the United States of
America, the said Berry Saunders being then and there lawfully
qualified to vote at said election; and having so conspired, with
intent as aforesaid, the said Jasper Yarbrough, James Yarbrough,
Dilmus Yarbrough, Neal Yarbrough, Lovel Streetman, Bold Emory,
State Lemmons, Jake Hayes, and E. H. Green did then and there beat,
bruise, wound, and maltreat the said Berry Saunders, contrary to
the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against
the peace and dignity of the United States of America."
"EMORY SPEER,
U.S. Atty."
"A true bill. October 12, 1883."
"J. C. KIRKPATRICK, Foreman"
Stripped of its technical verbiage, the offense charged in this
indictment as that the defendants conspired to intimidate Berry
Saunders, a citizen of African descent, in the exercise of his
right to vote for a member of the Congress of the United States,
and, in the execution of that conspiracy, they beat, bruised,
wounded, and otherwise maltreated him; and, in the second count,
that they did this on account of his race, color, and previous
condition of servitude, by going in disguise and assaulting him on
the public highway and on his own premises.
If the question were not concluded in this Court, as we have
already seen that it is by the decision of the Circuit Court, we
entertain no doubt that the conspiracy here described is one which
is embraced within the provisions of the Revised Statutes which we
have cited.
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. If this government is anything
more than a mere aggregation of delegated agents of other States
and governments, each
Page 110 U. S. 658
of which is superior to the general government, it must have the
power to protect the elections on which its existence depends from
violence and corruption.
If it has not this power, it is left helpless before the two
great natural and historical enemies of all republics, open
violence and insidious corruption.
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. The brief of counsel before us, though
directed to the authority of that body to pass criminal laws, uses
the same language. 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. This principle, in its application to the Constitution
of the United States, more than to almost any other writing, is a
necessity by reason of the inherent inability to put into words all
derivative powers -- a difficulty which the instrument itself
recognizes by conferring on Congress the authority to pass all laws
necessary and proper to carry into execution the powers expressly
granted, and all other powers vested in the government or any
branch of it by the Constitution. Article I, sec. 8, clause 18.
We know of no express authority to pass laws to punish theft or
burglary of the treasury of the United States. Is there therefore
no power in Congress to protect the treasury by punishing such
theft and burglary?
Are the mails of the United States, and the money carried in
them, to be left at the mercy of robbers and of thieves who may
handle the mail because the Constitution contains no express words
of power in Congress to enact laws for the punishment of those
offenses? The principle, if sound, would abolish the entire
criminal jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, and the
laws which confer that jurisdiction.
Page 110 U. S. 659
It is said that the States can pass the necessary law on this
subject, and no necessity exists for such action by Congress. But
the existence of state laws punishing the counterfeiting of the
coin of the United States has never been held to supersede the acts
of Congress passed for that purpose, or to justify the United
States in failing to enforce its own laws to protect the
circulation of the coin which it issues.
It is very true that while Congress at an early day passed
criminal laws to punish piracy with death, and for punishing all
ordinary offenses against person and property committed within the
District of Columbia, and in forts, arsenals, and other places
within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, it was slow
to pass laws protecting officers of the government from personal
injuries inflicted while in discharge of their official duties
within the States. This was not for want of power, but because no
occasion had arisen which required such legislation, the remedies
in the state courts for personal violence having proved
sufficient.
Perhaps the earliest attempt of Congress to protect government
officers while in the exercise of their duty in a hostile community
grew out of the nullification ordinance of South Carolina, and is
found in the "Act further to provide for the collection of duties
on imports." That act gave a right of action in the courts of the
United States to any officer engaged in the collection of customs
who should receive any injury to his person or property for or on
account of any act done by him under any law of the United States
for the protection of the revenues. And where any suit or
prosecution should be commenced against him in a state court on
account of any act done under the revenue laws of the United States
or under color thereof, the case might, on his petition, at any
time before trial, be removed into the Circuit Court of the United
States. Act of March 2, 1833, 4 Stat. 632.
When, early in the late civil war, the enforcement of the acts
of Congress for obtaining soldiers by draft brought the officers
engaged in it into hostile neighborhoods, it was found necessary to
pass laws for their protection. Accordingly, in 1863, an act was
passed making it a criminal offense to assault or obstruct
Page 110 U. S. 660
any officer while engaged in making the draft, or in any service
in relation thereto. 12 Stat. 371. 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 Stat. 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.
It was not doubted for a moment by Court or counsel that
Congress had the power to pass these statutes, but it was held that
serving notice of a draft, in doing which the man was killed, was
not a service in the enrollment, as charged in the indictment.
United States v.
Scott, 3 Wall. 642.
In the case of
United States v. Gleason, Woolworth 128,
the defendant was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder
of an enrolling officer while engaged in making the enrollment, and
his sentence being commuted to imprisonment for life, he died in
the Iowa penitentiary while undergoing the modified sentence. It
was never suggested that Congress had no power to pass the law
under which he was convicted.
So, also, has the Congress been slow to exercise the powers
expressly conferred upon it in relation to elections by the fourth
section of the first article of the Constitution.
This section declares that
"[t]he times, places, and manner of holding elections for
senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each State by
the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time make or
alter such regulations, except as to the place of choosing
senators."
It was not until 1842 that Congress took any action under the
power here conferred, when, conceiving that the system of electing
all the members of the house of representatives from a State by
general ticket, as it was called -- that is, every elector voting
for as many names as the State was entitled to representatives in
that house -- worked injustice to other States which did not adopt
that system, and gave an undue preponderance
Page 110 U. S. 661
of power to the political party which had a majority of votes in
the State, however small, enacted that each member should be
elected by a separate district, composed of contiguous territory. 5
Stat. 491.
And to remedy more than one evil arising from the election of
members of Congress occurring at different times in the different
States, Congress, by the act of February 2, 1872, 30 years later,
required all the elections for such members to be held on the
Tuesday after the first Monday in November in 1876, and on the same
day of every second year thereafter.
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.
In like manner, Congress has fixed a day, which is to be the
same in all the States, when the electors for president and
vice-president shall be appointed.
Now the day fixed for electing members of Congress has been
established by Congress without regard to the time set for election
of state officers in each State, and, but for the fact that the
state legislatures have, for their own accommodation, required
state elections to be held at the same time, these elections would
be held for Congressmen alone at the same time fixed by the act of
Congress.
Will it be denied that it is in the power of that body to
provide laws for the proper conduct of those elections? To provide,
if necessary, the officers who shall conduct them and make return
of the result? And especially to provide, in an election held under
its own authority, for security of life and limb to the voter while
in the exercise of this function? Can it be doubted that Congress
can, by law, protect the act of voting, the place where it is done,
and the man who votes from personal violence or intimidation, and
the election itself from corruption or fraud?
Page 110 U. S. 662
If this be so, and it is not doubted, are such powers annulled
because an election for state officers is held at the same time and
place? Is it any less important that the election of members of
Congress should be the free choice of all the electors, because
state officers are to be elected at the same time?
Ex parte
Siebold, 100 U. S. 371.
These questions answer themselves, and it is only because the
Congress of the United States, through long habit and long years of
forbearance, has, in deference and respect to the States, refrained
from the exercise of these powers that they are now doubted.
But when, in the pursuance of a new demand for action, that
body, as it did in the cases just enumerated, finds it necessary to
make additional laws for the free, the pure, and the safe exercise
of this right of voting, they stand upon the same ground, and are
to be upheld for the same reasons.
It is said that the parties assaulted in these cases are not
officers of the United States, and their protection in exercising
the right to vote by Congress does not stand on the same
ground.
But the distinction is not well taken. The power in either case
arises out of the circumstance that the function in which the party
is engaged or the right which he is about to exercise is dependent
on the laws of the United States.
In both cases, it is the duty of that government to see that he
may exercise this right freely, and to protect him from violence
while so doing, or on account of so doing. This duty does not arise
solely from the interest of the party concerned, but from the
necessity of the government itself that its service shall be free
from the adverse influence of force and fraud practiced on its
agents, and that the votes by which its members of Congress and its
President are elected shall be the free votes of the electors, and
the officers thus chosen the free and uncorrupted choice of those
who have the right to take part in that choice.
This proposition answers also another objection to the
constitutionality of the laws under consideration, namely, that the
right to vote for a member of Congress is not dependent upon
Page 110 U. S. 663
the Constitution or laws of the United States, but is governed
by the law of each State respectively.
If this were conceded, the importance to the general government
of having the actual election -- the voting for those members, free
from force and fraud -- is not diminished by the circumstance that
the qualification of the voter is determined by the law of the
State where he votes. It equally affects the government; it is as
indispensable to the proper discharge of the great function of
legislating for that government that those who are to control this
legislation shall not owe their election to bribery or violence,
whether the class of persons who shall vote is determined by the
law of the State, or by the laws of the United States, or by their
united result.
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 I, section 2.
The States, in prescribing the qualifications of voters for the
most numerous branch of their own legislatures, do not do this with
reference to the election for members of Congress. Nor can they
prescribe the qualification for voters for those
eo
nomine. They define who are to vote for the popular branch of
their own legislature, and the Constitution of the United States
says the same persons shall vote for members of Congress in that
State. It adopts the qualification thus furnished as the
qualification of its own electors for members of Congress.
It is not true, therefore, that electors for members of Congress
owe their right to vote to the state law, in any sense
Page 110 U. S. 664
which makes the exercise of the right to depend exclusively on
the law of the State.
Counsel for petitioners, seizing upon the expression found in
the opinion of the court in the case of
Minor v.
Happersett, 21 Wall. 178, that "the Constitution of
the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon
anyone," without reference to the connection in which it is used,
insists that the voters in this case do not owe their right to vote
in any sense to that instrument.
But the court was combating the argument that this right was
conferred on all citizens, and therefore upon women as well as
men.
In opposition to that idea, it was said the Constitution adopts
as the qualification for voters of members of Congress that which
prevails in the State where the voting is to be done; therefore,
said the opinion, the right is not definitely conferred on any
person or class of persons by the Constitution alone, because you
have to look to the law of the State for the description of the
class. But the court did not intend to say that, when the class or
the person is thus ascertained, his right to vote for a member of
Congress was not fundamentally based upon the Constitution, which
created the office of member of Congress, and declared it should be
elective, and pointed to the means of ascertaining who should be
electors.
The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, by its limitation
on the power of the States in the exercise of their right to
prescribe the qualifications of voters in their own elections, and
by its limitation of the power of the United States over that
subject, clearly shows that the right of suffrage was considered to
be of supreme importance to the national government, and was not
intended to be left within the exclusive control of the States. It
is in the following language:
"SEC. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any
State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude."
"SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation. "
Page 110 U. S. 665
While it is quite true, as was said by this Court in
United
States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 218,
that this article gives no affirmative right to the colored man to
vote, and is designed primarily to prevent discrimination against
him whenever the right to vote may be granted to others, it is easy
to see that, under some circumstances, it may operate as the
immediate source of a right to vote. 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.
Neal v. Delaware,
103 U. S. 370.
In such cases, this fifteenth article of amendment does,
proprio vigore, substantially confer on the negro the
right to vote, and Congress has the power to protect and enforce
that right.
In the case of
United States v. Reese, so much relied
on by counsel, this Court said, in regard to the Fifteenth
Amendment, that
"it has invested the citizens of the United States with a new
constitutional right which is within the protecting power of
Congress. 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.
The exercise of the right in both instances is guarantied by the
Constitution, and should be kept free and pure by Congressional
enactments whenever that is necessary.
The reference to cases in this Court in which the power of
Congress under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment
Page 110 U. S. 666
has been held to relate alone to acts done under state authority
can afford petitioners no aid in the present case. 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.
But it is a waste of time to seek for specific sources of the
power to pass these laws. Chancellor Kent, in the opening words of
that part of his Commentaries which treats of the government and
constitutional jurisprudence of the United States, says:
"The government of the United States was created by the free
voice and joint will of the people of American for their common
defense and general welfare. Its powers apply to those great
interests which relate to this country in its national capacity,
and which depend for their protection on the consolidation of the
Union. It is clothed with the principal attributes of political
sovereignty, and it is justly deemed the guardian of our best
rights, the source of our highest civil and political duties, and
the sure means of national greatness."
1 Kent's Comm. 201.
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. 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.
Such has been the history of all republics, and, though ours
Page 110 U. S. 667
has been comparatively free from both these evils in the past,
no lover of his country can shut his eyes to the fear of future
danger from both sources.
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.
If the government of the United States has within its
constitutional domain no authority to provide against these evils
-- if the very sources of power may be poisoned by corruption or
controlled by violence and outrage, without legal restraint -- then
indeed is the country in danger, and its best powers, its highest
purposes, the hopes which it inspires, and the love which enshrines
it are at the mercy of the combinations of those who respect no
right but brute force on the one hand, and unprincipled
corruptionists on the other.
The rule to show cause in this case is discharged, and the
writ of habeas corpus denied.