| Show TILE THE CASES AGAINST THE TILE commissioners ARGUMENTS I 1 F T 3 1 IN N THE SUPREME COURT OF or THE UNITED STATES the five cases a against ainest the utah cons cola I 1 mission appealed from the tho supreme court of the territory came up for argument before the supreme court of the united states on wednesday jan eight judges were on the bench who listened with close attention to the speakers and the brief that had been prepared and printed the cases are of mary ann ahn 31 pratt ellen 0 clawson and husband james jame M barlow mildred E banull eau Ean dalland anz and husband and jesse J murphy ag against alexander ramsey A S paddock G JL godfrey A 13 BC carlton arlton J R pettigrew E D hoge hose and the several deputy registrars of the precincts where the appellants resided at the time tinie of the election of 1882 each case has its own peculiarities but all charge that the appellees appelless app ellees wilfully and maliciously struck and kept from the registration lists the names of the appellants who were lawfully entitled to vote neither of them having violated the edmunds law anti and the ladles ladies not beina either of them a big bigamist adist or polygamist within the meaning of the statute the complaint charges too that the test oath prescribed by the commissioners Is unauthorized by law that the commissioners have usurped legislative powers in its pre pilon that the oath gives an ex post facto interpretation to a penal act that the Commission commissioners erh have no other duty to perform than simply to appoint the registration and election officers and count the returns for tor embers members m of the legislature and issue certificates of their election going back to the elaw law itself it is cl claimed aimed that the edmunds act is unconstitutional in that it itis ills is a bill of attainder and export facto in its effects the summary withdrawal of the elective franchise for which it provides Is punishment and that Is inflicted indicted without due process of law congress cannot hold the territories as provinces and diere dis disregard regard ard the fundamental principle of ou our institutions focal and the ninth section ot of the edmunds act substitutes the will of five nyc comm commissioners for the will of the people this in brief Is the marrow of the complaint senator vest of missouri misso urt art opened the argument he looks like a larger edition of H B clawson and speaks with warmth and force ile he preben presented ted the facts in the case of mrs pratt show isho ving in that she had violated no law and that her husband the late professor orson pratt died before the passage of the edmunds law she was denied the privilege of voting the commissioners sitting without authority of law as a judicial 1 body to determine her case ile he spoke of the commission as a most extraordinary body something without precedent in me country but their assumption of judicial and legislative functions was without excuse or color of legality ile he read the eighth section of the edmunds act which alone creates and defines their powers and in showing that they have no such authority as they have assumed he referred to the debate on the passage of the law when in answer to the opponents of the measure that they feared the exercise of just such powers senator edmunds himself replied As to the qualifications of electors this board of tive live persons are not by this bill rested vested with any powers at all they are left lef t exactly where they are left by the other laws of the united states mr vest showed that they were to act under the existing laws of congress and of the territory of utah but they had ignored the latter and made rules and added to the law to td sult juit their own interpretation of their powers under the edmunds act I 1 lie he cued cred the case ot mayor william Jen jennings and the application of IV V C A bryan of nephi for the settlement of a question as to the qualification of voter sand showed how ane commissioners had sat as a court diff mr J jennings jun Jen dunings unlawfully aud and issued rules in an answer awer to mr bryhn bryin thus exercising both judicial and legislative powers ile he denounced nield riela meir weir course in strong language and warmed up to his work in la vigorous style senator vest yest going to the law itself 9 argued as to its unconstitutionality cited the cummings case to show that I 1 noone lio tio one can be deprived of the righetto right to dold by a legislative enactment enact meni ment that chat punishment can only be legally inflicted by due process ot of law 1 nich alch which means a judicial trial the wh whole 0 le edmunds act he said is a crimes act section eight must be construed in company with sections one and two each of them is punitive and section eight is a bill of pains and penalties and is ex post facto the senator occupied an hour and a quarter which was fifteen minutes more than his allotted time and closed abruptly when he learned that fact it was an able effort and gained the absorbing interest of the court senator edmunds was present luring during turing a portion of the tue speech and conferred with justice gray solicitor general phillips a large and ponderous man argued in behalf of the Commiss commissioners loners A li was one of the lamest things imaginable coming from such a source and was mar marred redby oy the indistinct manner of speech which marked the greater part of it he took the position that in the pratt and barlow cases there was a ground aground of action but in the other thre enone it was not shown that they had been injured also it had not been claimed that the parties 1 or either elther of them had been compelled 1 i to take the oath prescribed lie he stated incorrectly that the commissioners were placed by the law in the positions formerly occupied by the registration and election officers argued that the assessor ais lis sessor acting ai as the registration of officer fleer was required to administer an oath the substance afi which was prescribed by the utah law of 1878 but iff rif if the utah law aw had bad changed in 1882 be he would have been required to change the oath to conform to the law congress had bad the right to pass jaws as it pleased for the territories and had enacted the edmunds law which prescribed a new qualification for voters and this was properly included in the new oath which which the commissioners as the registration officer required voters to take lie he then actually admitted that the commissioners had bad no right to enact a new oath and tet yet et argued that congress had made it it their duty to see sec that no bigamist polygamist etc voted ana and thus of them to do what they had done lie he next argued that any person wheat any time had been guilty of polygamy and did not by his oath show that this relation had been discontinued was properly diff ranched by the edmunds act Ile he maintained that bigamy or polygamy was a state or condition against which congress sou sought ht to legislate as well as against it N as a personal of fence it athas has a political icalas as well as a criminal aspect ile he bo he warmed up into a senator Vests argument that the edmunds law Is only a crimes act I 1 and showed that congress not only legislated against polygamy byway by way of punishment but as v a condition which was against the order of the state and therefore part of the kawwas law was criminal and part political ile he did not put it as clearly us this but that was the tenor of his remarks and be he proceeded to make the usual anti mormon ormon general attack on the system of polygamy as it is supposed to affect the nation pation ile he called it the moral dynamite that would disturb the country if let alone touching on the powers of congress over the territories he referred to the time when missouri before it was a state was governed by certain off omm meers officers of indiana appointed for the purpose congress could do for utah anything thata that a state could do for its own citizens zens coming back to the cases before the court he urged that a woman must share the disadvantages as well as advantages of her husbands status an alien woman loman boman became a citizen by marriage to a citizen so a woman whose husband entered polygamy became disfranchised franchised dis by y his disabilities after a few general remarks in an his instinct tone and hesitating manner he berated senator vest for f or the style of his speech which he suggested had no influence la in this part of the Co captol costol Cop cap pitol toi tol and then took his seat E attorney general macveagh then addressed the court he is a small nervy intellectual looking man with thin f face ace head partly bald voice clear and and enunciation syllabic syllable and distinct he was quite at home with the court yet very respectful and talked in a convincing way he demolished the solicitor r general generals Is aftem attempt t to show that three of the cases hat had no cause and proved that it the other two as admitted were valid all were for similar causes ile he then took up the question of the powers of congress and though thou h a republican advocated fi aretty retty 1 thorough democratic doctrine e lam jam down the principle principle that whatever might be cla cia claimed rued for congress Con ress und under erthe the clause iu ia the C constitution Q ution about needful rules and regulations respecting the territory bry and other property of the united states while wo ile the legislature exists under the organic Act Congress hadano ordinate coordinate co power to prescribe the qualifications of bf voters here an animated colloquy ensued several members of the court asking questions to which mr air mac mae macveagh leagh replied clearly and good humo maintaining his fits position tiou tion intact answering mr phillips argument about what congress had done in certain early cases he showed that it was done outside of the constitution as admitted by the promoters of the movements themselves now congress was bound by the constitution local self seif government was an essential principle of our institutions and the best form it was wondrous strange that out of that one clause in the constitution about needful rules congress should have drawn that imperial power it had exercised he maintained that whatever author authority ltv mj might ht thus have been claimed oo corss congress rss rsm could not constitute election officers bodies to inquire into crime and prevent those from voting whom they consider guilty if the law provided that one guilty of larceny should not vote they could not determine his guilt or innocence before any man Is adjudged guilty he must be tried and before he can be prevented vented from voting he must roust first have been law judicially ludicia lly liy put into the class which Is b by law debarred barred de Jarred f anim min voting A test oath is not due process of law but a bill of pains and penalties at 4 the court adjourned til till L noon of the it being understood that mr macveagh was to have further time to contin continue ue his argument although one hour hoar ho or each was the stipulation hon P F S richards was present as one of the counsel for the appellants this Is most valuable to their cause although he is not to speak on this occasion giving way toller to mr macveagh he is alert to present points and suggestions and urge arguments affecting these important questions such as are essential for welfare the comprehensiveness and compactness of the printed brief are largely due to nis his thorough knowledge of the situation and the laws and authorities ties bearing upon the matter he has ims been indefatigable and though ht h work does not shine on qu the surface in an oratorical presentment of the cases it has his been the moving force beneath which has inspired the close arguments and pertinent of the speaking in counsel for the appellants 0 JH a thursday mr Alac macveagh Vea 1 h resumed his amu argument ment he commenced by showing further that each case before the court was similar in respect to having havin ghis his or her name stricken from there the registration list each having applied lied tied 1 for registration and anti been beed denied tu in mrs airs Glaw Claw sons sona case a wife was denied a political right because an election officer de decided idea that her husband was a this was a peculiar case ylie the gentleman then addressed himself to the proposition that no person could be deprived of the suffrage without due process of law lie ile showed conclusively that when once enjoyed the ane elective franchise was property yi and that to too 0 of inestimable value an off cit cited edthe the court courts 8 own language in minor Vs happersett 21 wall that the right of suffrage lra ewhen when craned will be protected he who has it can only be deprived of it by due process of law in answer to questions from irom judges matthews and harian harlan he hb admitted thal that legislatures might change as well as pres chioe the of voters but not take away the right to vote when it was once conferred for it then becomes property justice matthews here interposed the objection that it does not appear irom from tile tue complaints that either ot of tue parties was ivas a legal voter it does not affirm 1 I am noc a bigamist or polygamist 11 mr MacVea macveagh sh replied to the effect that the complaints covered every point required to show that the parties were not de barred by the law from voting it etwas was not affirmed 1 I am neither a bigamist noi nor polygamist 11 because the definition of those terms was open to dispute therom the commissioners ners took the ground that a person who at any time was a polygamist remained so for all time even though be he became a widower the gentleman declared that he could not draft a complaint that covered the ground more com completely than these complaints that had bad come from utah coming back to his main argument be he showed that due process ZI of law means adjudication by a judicial tribunal authorized to determine the question no election officer could sit in judgment lud jud g ment meat upon any ones right to vote I 1 this attempt against the liberties of citizens would not stop here if this court sanctioned it the consequences would be widespread suppose in maine where liquor selling was friter inter ducted by law it should be enacted that no one who violated that law should vote and election officers decided dealder that a man was L liquor seller and s so 0 dis franchised him would the court courts ustain sustain such proceedings yet the principle was the same as that applied now in utah he asked what was the value of real property com compared a red to that of property in the ere efe elective c tive franchise ile he claimed that the edmunds law does not prescribe a qualification for voters but Is designed to punish of fences and the deprivation of the their r voting power was part ot the punishment but was inflicted without due doe process of law jaw he made au an affecting ap appeal eal eai in behalf of mrs clawson CI awson the lawful wife of a reputed pol polygamist earnist gar who was punished for the tile alil aIrl alleged eged act acton of her husband to whom she clung as a matter of I 1 choice and right and ard asked what phat the 4 court would think of a mans being deprived by a mere election officer of the franchise for so some me wrong done by hi his wite wife he concluded with a powerful appeal to the court to sustain the sacred principles of human libert ilbert yand kand guard auard the rights of american citizens of every class and degree nir dir mr MacVea macveagh sh was highly co complimented in 11 it 1 for lis his its eloquent and logical plea the solicitor general gazed up lip to the ceiling belling as though wrapped in reflection over oven the strong points presented the court took the matter matteren un der |
