Show I A VALID LAW The Constitutionality of the Ed munds Act Affirmed The Registrar and Not the Commission Com-mission to be Sued Congress Has Supreme Jurisdiction Jurisdic-tion in the Territories Supreme Court Decision in Polygamy Suits WASHINGTON March 23A decision was rendered by the Supremo Court of the United States today in the series of five cases known as polygamy suits brought by certain Mormon citizens of Utah forthe purpose of getting a judicial decision as to the power of the Board of Commissioners or Canvassers appointed under the socalled Edmunds Act of March 22d 1882 to supervise elections in that Territory The appellants in these cases are Jesse J Murphy Mary Ann Pratt Mildred E and Alfred Randall Ellen C and Hiram B Clawson and Jas M Barlow The defendants and appel lees are Alex Ramsey and others constituting the Federal Board of Commissioners Com-missioners and certain registration officers appointed by them The principal princi-pal question raised by the suits is whether the Board of Commissioners appointed ap-pointed under the Edmunds Act had power to prescribe as a condition of registration regis-tration of voters a discriminating test oath requiring the applicant for registration i registra-tion to swear that he or she has not been i living in a state of bigamy or polygamy The court examined the cases separately and holds the complainants Mary Ann Pratt and Mildred E Randall were clearly deprived of their right to registration registra-tion without authority of law since by their allegations they exclude themselves them-selves from the disqualifications of the act of 1882 Ellen C Clawson Jesse J Murphy and James M Barlow on the other hand were the court holds included in-cluded in the disqualifications of the act and had no right to registration In reaching these conclusions the court in its opinion makes an elaborate review of I the act of 1882 for the purpose of giving construction to some of its provisions I and showing how they apply to the present cases By that act the court holds it is made the duty of registration officers to see that persons offering to register are free from the disqualifications defined therein Justice Matthewd concludes con-cludes Counsel for appellants in arguments ar-guments seemed to question the constitutional consti-tutional power of Congress to pass the act of March 22d 1882 so far as it abridges abrid-ges the rights of electors in the Territory under previous laws But that question is we think no longer open to discussion discus-sion It has passed beyond the stage of controversy into final judgment The people of the United States as the I sovereign owners of the National Territories Ter-ritories have supreme power over them and their inhabitants I I In ordaining a government for the Territories Ter-ritories and the people who inhabit them all discretion which belongs to the legislative legis-lative power is vested in Congress and that extends beyond and controversy to determining by law from time to time the form of local government in a particular parti-cular Territory and the qualifications of those who shall administer it It rests with Congress to say whether in a given case any of the people resident in a Territory Ter-ritory shall participate in the election of its officers or making its laws and it may therefore take from them any right of suffrage it may previously have conferred con-ferred or at any time modify or abridge it as it may deem expedient The personal per-sonal and civil rights of inhrbitarts of Territories are secured to them as to all other citizens by the principles of constitutional con-stitutional liberty which restrain all agencies of Government State and National Na-tional Their political rights are fran chiseswhich they hold as privileges in the legislative discretion of the Congress of the United States If we concede this discretion in Congress is limited by the obvious purposes for which it was conferred con-ferred and that those purposes are satisfied satis-fied by measures which prepare the people of the Territories to become citizens citi-zens of States in the Union still the conclusion con-clusion cannot be averted that the act of Congress here in question is clearly within that justification for certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome whole-some and necessary in forming a free selfgoverning commonwealth fit to take rank as one of the coordinate States in the Union than that which seeks to establish es-tablish it on the basis of the idea of the family as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy state of matrimony the sure foundation of all that is staple and noble in our civilization the best guarantee of that reverent morality his h-is the source of all beneficient progress m improvement And to social and political and are more directly this end no means immediately suitable than those provided by this act which endeavors to withdraw all political influence from those who are practically hostile to its attainment |