person, is paid for him by another, without his previous authority, yet if he recognizes the act, and repays or promises to repay the amount on the ground that such person acted as his agent, he thereby acquires the same right to vote, as if he had paid the tax with his own hand. (ib. and see Draper vs. Johnson, Clark & Hall, 702.)

§ 24. Where A., who was taxed for land, denied, when called on for payment, that he was rightfully taxed, or that he owned the land, and directed the collector to call on B., the true owner, and the collector thereupon called on B.'s wife, in the absence of B., and she paid the tax, and where A. afterwards not believing himself rightfully assessed, or that B. had any claim on him, repaid the amount, merely for the purpose of securing the right to vote, Held, that it was not such a payment as entitled him to vote. ib.

§ 25. Under a constitutional provision, requiring as a qualification for voting, the payment of a tax which had been assessed at least six months before the election, it has been held that an assessment upon the voter individually, six months before the election, was necessary, and that it is not enough that it be laid upon the County of which he is a resident. It seems, however, that it is not necessary that it be a personal or poll tax. It is sufficient if it be a tax assessed either upon his person or his property within the time required. (Cather vs. Smith, 2 Sergeant & Rawle, 267.)

§ 26. In Massachusetts it has been held, that persons who have the requisite qualifications as to residence, but who have been exempted from taxation on account of their poverty two successive years before

their arrival at the age of seventy years, are not entitled to vote, under that clause of the Constitution of that State, which gives the right of suffrage to persons otherwise qualified, and who "shall be by law exempted from taxation." (Opinion of Judges 5, Metcalfe 591. See also 11 Pick. 538.)

§ 27. An action cannot be maintained against assessors by an individual who is liable to taxation for their omission to tax him, whereby he loses his right to vote at an election, unless it be shown affirmatively that they omitted to tax him wilfully, purposely, or with design to deprive him of his vote. [Griffin vs. Rising, 11 Pick. 339.]

§ 28. The Constitution of Massachusetts in force in 1837, vested the right to vote "in every male citizen otherwise qualified, who shall have paid, by himself or his master, parent or guardian, any State or County tax, which shall within two years next preceding the election in question, have been assessed upon him in any town or district in this commonwealth." Under this clause it was held that after any general assessment of a tax has been made by the assessors of a town, and committed to the proper officer for collection, and before another tax is com mitted to the assessors to assess, they have no authority to assess a poll or other tax on any person, for the purpose of enabling him to vote at an elec tion, nor is any person on the payment of a tax so assessed upon him, qualified to vote, under the above constitutional provision. [Opinion of Judges, 18 Pick, 575.]

§ 29. Where a State has ceded a given tract of land to the United States for a navy yard, arsenal,

or the like, and where there is no reservation of jurisdiction to the State other than the right to serve civil and criminal process on such lands, persons who reside upon such lands do not acquire any elective franchise, as inhabitants of such State. [Opinion of Fudges, 1 Metcalfe, [Mass.] 580. Sinks vs. Reese, 19 Ohio State, 306, Commonwealth vs. Clary, 8 Mass. 72.]

§ 30. "But this rule does not apply to persons residing upon a tract of land in a territory of the U. S., which has been reserved or set apart by the executive for military purposes. It was so held in Burleigh vs. Armstrong, 42d Congress, in which case the committee said in their report:

"But with regard to the election held within the military reservations of Fort Sully and Fort Randall, [or the Ellis precinct,] the committee have reached the conclusion that there is nothing in the terms of the organic act, nor in the general policy of the law, forbidding an election to be held at such places. The contestants have insisted that the rule which disqualifies persons from voting within any State, who reside within forts or other territory to which the title and jurisdiction has been ceded by the State to the Federal Governinent, applies to the military reservations which have been designated by the Executive within the Territories belonging to the United States. But forasmuch as there is no conflict of sovereignty between the Government and the Territory, and the latter holds all its jurisdiction in subordination to the controlling power of Congress, and the military reservations are not permanently severed from the body of the public lands, but are simply set apart and withheld from private ownership

by an executive order to the Commissioner of the Land Office, and may be and often are restored to the common stock of the public domain, when the occasion for their temporary occupancy has ceased, at the pleasure of Congress, and which requires no concurrent act of any State authority to give it efficacy, the residents upon such reservations, although abiding thereon by the mere sufferance of the United States authorities, do not in any just sense cease to be inhabitants or residents of the Territory within which such military reserve may be situate. Such residents seem to the committee to have that same general interest in the welfare of the community in which they live, and the same right to vote there, as any of the workmen at the arsenal or navy yard in Washington City, who may be allowed to sojourn within their limits, have to vote at elections within the District of Columbia for officers of its territorial government, or for a Delegate in Congress from that District."

§ 31. It seems to be settled that a State, in the exercise of its power to prescribe the qualifications of its electors, may require a test oath to be taken by every voter, at the polls. This is not a violation of the Constitution of the United States.

The Amended Constitution of Missouri required such an oath to be taken as a pre-requisite to exercising the right to vote, as well as to the exercise of the duties of certain callings in life, such as that of Attorney at Law, Minister of the Gospel, &c. In Cummings vs. Missouri, (4 Wall 277,) the Supreme Court of the United States, by a bare majority of the Judges, held this provision of the Consti

tution of Missouri to be void, as being in the nature of pains and penalties, so far as it related to the oath required to be taken by Ministers of the Gospel.— Mr. Justice Miller, however, for the minority of the Court, delivered a dissenting opinion which has been well characterized as "an opinion which for ability, logic, and admirable judicial criticism has rarely been excelled even in that august tribunal." The question of the validity of this test oath, as applied to voters, came before the Supreme Court of Missouri in Blair vs. Ridgely, (41 Missouri, 63,) and that Court in an elaborate and able opinion held it valid.

§ 32. This decision was not in conflict with Cummings vs. Missouri, supra. In the latter case the Supreme Court of the United States held that the right to adopt and follow the calling or avocation of a preacher, or minister of the gospel, was a natural right; a right absolute and vested, and that it was therefore not within the power of the State to prescribe a test oath to be taken, as a condition precedent to its enjoyment. But the right to vote is not a natural right; it is not such a right as belongs to man in a state of nature. It follows that the reasoning of the Court in Cummings vs. Missouri does not apply to the question of the validity of the test oath as applied to a voter. And it also follows, that inasmuch as the right to vote is derived from and regulated by the State Constitution and laws, it is competent for the State to prescribe loyalty as a qualification, and to enforce the requirement by exacting of every voter an oath of loyalty.

§ 33. This question arose in the House of Representatives of the United States in Birch vs. Van