The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1866-08-13

years a resident of the State, and
must have attained the age of thirty
years. To be member OF the Legis-
lature, a person must be a citizen Of
the United States, and must have been
an inhabitant of the State for two
years, and to occupy seat in the
Lower House, he must be twenty-one
years of age, and In the Senate TWEEN
| ty-6Ve. In all these you will see
atcitizenship alone does not render
a man eligible to the offices named,
| but citizenship, connected with age
and residence. Hence the conclusion
is inevitable, that the right to hold
Office is not an ingredient or element of
citizenship. But / do not stop here,
| affirm that for several of the most
important State offices, citizenship is
not made by the Constitution a test
of eligibility.
The Constitution says that there
: hall be elected by the voters of the
State Secretary, Auditor and Treas
urer of State who shall severally hold
their offices for two years; and no
person shall be eligible to either of
said offices more than four years in
any period of six years." As to these
four important offices citizenship is
not qualification, and | wish to
know how voter in this State, who
is not citizen, receiving the highest
number of votes for either of these
offices could be kept out of the Office.
This, however, is not all. / affirm
that by the express terms of the Con-
stitution, persons who are not citizens
are made eligible to a majority of the
The offices of Clerk, Auditor, Re-
corder, Treasurer, Sheriff, Coroner
and Surveyor are created for EACH
county by the Constitution, and all
that the Constitution requires to rem
der-a person eligible to either of these
Offices, is that he should be voter of
the county and should have resided
therein one year before his
election or appointment As al
ready shown, person may be
voter without being a citizen,
and therefore person not a citizen
may hold either of these important
county offices. Besides, this, there
are hundreds of thousands of persons
who are citizens of the United States
and residents of this State, who, are
not eligible to any Office because of
their sex, or because of their not
having attained the required age. If,
then, as | have demonstrated, persons
may hold offices without being citi-
zens, and if, on the other hand, per-
sons may be citizens and yet be. dis
qualified from holding any Office, what
becomes of the Voorhees, definition,
which makes the right to hold office
one of the ingredients of American
citizenship? Does not this definition
manifestly follow that of Mcdonald
to the tomb of the Copperheads?
Again, all the women and children
born In the United States are citizens
of the United States, and, if these
men are to be believed, because they
are citizens they would be entitled to
vote if thisamendment should beadop-
ted | respectfully ask these Knights
of the Dictionary whether this, does
not prove little too much? North
Carolina and Tennessee, in former
years, permitted free negroes to vote
/ ask these learned lawyers and can
did politicians whether these free me-
groes, when they were entitled to vote
in these States, were citizens? IF they |
say they were not, / ask them how |
then can the right to vote be an ele-
ment in the definition of a citizen? If |
they say they were citizens as long as
they had the right to vote, I ask did |
they cease to be citizens when their |
right to1vote was taken from them by |
amendments to the Constitutions of |
North Carolina and Tennessee 2 I'll
the answer is that they did cease to
have the right to vote then, allow me
to ask when, how and where did any.
single State obtainqthe power to un-.
make0ia citizen of the United States? |
AndiifaaSState can unmake aeitizen of |
the United States what is to. prevent
any State from sundoiBg, all that Con
gress has done in +, providing for the /
naturalization of foreigners Accord
ing to this doctrine a man may to-day |
beimade citizen of the United States
and tomorrow this very citizenship /
may be taken from him by the State
In which he happens to live. ed at
g 1Ilhave now raked and bound up
this swath of definitions which these
O0lnocTdtlc tcrduI0TS nave spread De-
fore the people; and in doing sod
submit that / have shown that the
article cradled was not honest wheat,
but the meanest kind of cheat. In
concluding the subject. / appeal from
the definitions of Mcdonald. Coffroth,
and Voorhees, to the definition of
Chancellor Kent, who was nearly as
good a lawyer as either. of them, and
quite as gooda lawyer as Noah Web
ster. Kent defines a citizen of the
United States to be " a free inhabit-
ant born within the United States, or
under the. laws of Con
gress. Thank Todl since the adop-
ton of the anti-slayery amendment, i
we have no inhabitants born in the
United States or elsewhere who are +
~ - IN