1st. Because the stated Supreme Court erred in affirming the judgment of the St. Louis Circuit Court-thereby, in impact, sustaining the demurrer filed in said Circuit Court by the defendant to the petition of the plaintiff. 3. Because the said Supreme Court of Missouri erred in affirming the judgment of the St. Louis Circuit Court-thereby, in effect, declaring that the Constitution and laws of Missouri, before recited, do not conflict with the Constitution of the United States. It’s to this Constitution, subsequently, we must look for the restrictions, if any, that may be positioned upon the political rights of the folks or residents of the United States. State, permitted March 10, 1871, to the identical effect; and it was claimed, subsequently, that the defendant was justified in refusing to register the plaintiff on account of her sex. Therefore, as a result of the effective has been imposed by a court docket of the United States for an offense triable by jury, with out the same being submitted to the jury, and because the court assumed to itself the precise to enter a verdict without submitting the case to the jury, and in order that the judgment of the House of Representatives, if it concur with the judgment of the committee, could, in the most sign and impressive form, mark its willpower to maintain in its integrity the common-legislation proper of trial by jury, your committee advocate that the prayer of the petitioner be granted, and to this finish report the next bill, with the suggestion that it do cross.
The plaintiff’s case is simply one of many means by which this finish will ultimately be reached. Sometimes, within the darker hours of English jurisprudence, the judges fined the jury after they weren’t the obedient instruments of their will however persisted find the defendants in state prosecutions not guilty when the decide thought they ought to have been found responsible; however neither Jeffreys nor Scroggs ever dared to set aside a verdict of not responsible. But your committee don’t find it essential to impute any intent of flawed to the discovered choose who tried this case; but the impact of his error was to deprive this petitioner of an important and beneficent proper, assured to her as strongly as another by the Constitution of her country, to have the question of her guilt passed upon by her friends, which error has had the same effect upon her rights as an intentional assumption of energy would have had, and should have hereafter, in dangerous occasions, wherein corrupt judges, wielding devices of power, shield themselves by precedents set by good judges in good times.
But the topic of suffrage (or the qualifications of electors, as the Constitution terms it) is just remitted to the States by the Constitution, to be regulated by them; to not restrict or prohibit the proper of suffrage, but to carry the identical totally into impact. But this belief has passed away; and, in like method, this doctrine of the precise of the States to exercise limitless and absolute management over the elective franchise of citizens of the United States, should and can give method to a truer and higher understanding of the topic. The plaintiff further states, that the defendant, effectively realizing that she, as a citizen of the United States and of the State of Missouri, resident as aforesaid, was then and there entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship, chief among which is the elective franchise, and as such, was entitled to be registered, as a way to exercise stated privilege: but, unlawfully intending, contriving, and designing to deprive the plaintiff of said franchise or privilege, then and there knowingly, willfully, maliciously, and corruptly refused to put her identify upon the record of registered voters, whereby she was deprived of her proper to vote.
The plaintiff, Virginia L. Minor (with whom is joined her husband, Francis Minor, as required by the regulation of Missouri), states, that beneath the Constitution and regulation of Missouri, all individuals wishing to vote at any election, must previously have been registered in the manner identified by legislation, this being a condition precedent to the exercise of the elective franchise. 1. Because mentioned Virginia L. Minor, plaintiff, had no right to vote at the overall election held in November, 1872, in said petition referred to. The plaintiff further states, that wishing to exercise her privilege as a citizen of the United States, and vote for Electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, and for a Representative in Congress, and for other officers, at the general Election held in November, 1872: While said defendant was so performing as Registrar, on mentioned fifteenth day of October, 1872, she appeared earlier than him, at his workplace aforesaid, after which and there supplied to take and subscribe the oath to support the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Missouri, as required by the registration law of mentioned State, approved March 10, 1871, and respectfully utilized to him to be registered as a lawful voter, which mentioned defendant then and there refused to do.