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Horn, (2 Bartlett 205,) and the decision of the committee, and of the House, was in accordance with the view just expressed. The committee use the following language in their report:

"The ninth section of the same article provides that after sixty days from the time the constitution takes effect, no person shall be "permitted to practice as an attorney or counselor-at-law, nor after that time shall any person be competent as a bishop, priest, deacon, minister, elder, or other clergyman of any religious persuasion, sect, or denomination, to teach or preach, or solemnize marriages, unless such person shall have first taken, subscribed, and filed said oath."

Under this ninth section of the constitution arose the case of Cummings vs. The State of Missouri, (4 Wallace, 277,) in which it was held by a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States that this provision, having the effect to deprive persons of the right to practice professions and pursue avocations lawful in themselves, in consequence of acts done prior to the adoption of the constitution, could only have been intended as punishment for such acts, and was therefore in essence and substance an ex post facto law, and therefore forbidden by the Constitution of the United States. The contestant claims that the same application of principles requires the same decision in relation to voters; that the virtual disfranchisement of persons who were voters under the previous Constitution and laws of the State, but who are prevented from voting under the new Constitution, by reason of their inability to take the oath it requires, can only be regarded as a punishment for

the act which stands in the way of taking the oath, and that the Constitution of the United States prohibits the infliction of punishment by subsequent legislation.

If such disfranchisement must be regarded as established for the purpose of punishing the persons thus deprived of the right of voting, it must be admitted to come entirely within the reasoning by which the above cited judgment of the Court is supported.

Your committee believe that the provisions of the new Constitution of Missouri may be supported, so far as they require this oath of voters, without at all trenching upon the decision of the Supreme Court.

Each of the States of the Union have hitherto regulated suffrage within their own limits for themselves, and in such a manner as the people of the State deemed most conducive to their own interests and welfare. Suffrage is a political right or privilege which every free community grants to such number and class of persons as it deems fittest to represent and advance the wants and interests of the whole. No State grants it to all persons, but with such limitations as the interests of all and the interest of the State require.

When once granted it is not a vested, irrevocable right, but it is held at the pleasure of the power that gave it, and the State may, by a change of its fundamental law, restrict as well as enlarge it. When, therefore, the State of Missouri, in changing its constitution, saw fit to declare that the interests of the State and of the people of the State would be promoted by withholding the right of voting from all persons who could not take the prescribed oath,

they exercised no greater or higher power than exists in every State."

§ 34. It was held by the Supreme Court of Mass. in 1814, that a person having a permanent home in one town within that State, and being a legal voter in such town, is not disqualified by a temporary absence in another town, and being there admitted to

(Lincoln vs. Hapgood, 11 Mass. 350.) The general doctrine laid down in this case is doubtless correct. If a person is clearly a resident of, and a legal voter, in one place, and is improperly and illegally permitted to vote at another, that fact alone will not disqualify him from continuing to vote at the place of his actual residence. But it is proper to observe in this connection, that if there is any doubt as to which of two places is the home, or residence of a voter, the fact that he has within a recent period voted at one of such places, would be very strong evidence that he had decided for himself to make his

home where he cast his vote. And if a person is residing at a particular place, and there is doubt as to whether he is residing there temporarily, and claiming another place as his house, if he claims and exercises the right to vote at the place where he is for the time residing, that fact ought to be regarded as evidence well nigh conclusive that he has abandoned his former residence, and determined to make his home where he claims his vote. The question of residence or domicil is a question largely of intention, and the fact of voting is very strong evidence of the voter's intention to claim a domicil at the place of voting.

§ 35. A certificate of naturalization in due form,

issued by a Court possessing the jurisdiction to grant the same, is prima facie evidence of naturalization, and an election officer cannot go behind it. If a voter could be obliged to bring proof aliunde to sustain such a certificate, and the judges of election could be obliged to hear evidence pro and con, the value of the boon of citizenship, which we confer upon foreigners who come to our shores, would be greatly lessened. Besides, in many localities where the number of naturalized voters is very large, this mode of proceeding would be impossible, since a few cases would consume the whole of the day of election, and the many would remain unheard. (Commonwealth vs Lee, 1 Brewster, 273. Commonwealth vs. Sheriff, ibid, 183. Commonwealth vs. Leary, ibid, 270.)

§ 36. In the case of Williams vs. Whiting, (11 Mass., 424,) the question was as to when the plaintiff ceased to be a resident of Roxbury, and became a resident of Dedham. On the 28th day of October, 1811, being then a resident of Roxbury, “he received,” says the Court, "an appointment which rendered it convenient, if not necessary, for him to dwell in Dedham; and he then began to prepare for his removal; from that time until the 12th of November he passed almost every day in Dedham, where he transacted his business, and returned to his family each night, except three, on which he slept in Dedham, rather by accident than design; he had also on the 29th of October engaged a house in Dedham, but he did not occupy it until the 12th of November, on which day he removed his family and became domiciled in Dedham." And the Court held upon these facts that he remained an inhabitant of Roxbury until the day of his removal with his family.

In the same case it is held that under the statute

of Mass., to entitle a person to vote for a Representative in Congress, he must have resided one whole year previous to the election in the town where he offers to vote, and that it made no difference that the person offering to vote had removed inside of a year from another town in the same congressional district. The Constitution of the United States requires that the electors for Representative in Congress shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature, and one of these qualifications in Massachusetts was one year's residence in the place of voting.

§36a. Where a voter removed from the State of Illinois to another State with his family, with intent not to remain there unless suited, and returned because not satisfied to make his removal permanent, never having fully decided to change his residence, he was held not to have lost his right to vote in Illinois. (Beardstown vs. Virginia, 81 Ills., 541.)

§ 37. A person who removes with his family from one town to another, does not retain the right to vote in the former, until he acquires it in the latter (McDaniel's Case, 3 Pa., L. 7. 310. Thompson vs. Ewing, 1 Brewst., 103.)

§ 38. For a thorough and able discussion of the question of residence, as applied to voters, see the Report of the Committee of Elections in the House of Representatives of the 42d Congress, in the case of Cessna vs Meyers, to be found in full in the appendix to this volume. This report presents forcibly and clearly the important consideration that no definition of "residence" or "domicil" can be made sufficiently comprehensive to apply to all conceivable cases and circumstances. Tests which are satisfactory in some cases cannot be applied as inflexible

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