The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1892-10-18
DEMOCRATS GAIN A POINT
Michigan's Election Law Sus-
tanned by the Supreme Court.
ELECTORS CHOSEN BY DISTRICTS.

The Democrats Claim That the De-
cision Will Give Four Votes TO the
Candidates of Their Party. While
Republicans Concede Three.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1s. - The United
States Supreme Court, by Chief Justice
Fuller, affirmed the judgment of the
Michigan Supreme Court, upholding the
constitutionality of the famous Miner
law, providing for the election of presi-
dental electors by congressional dis
tricts instead of by the state as whole,
and for the election CT electors at large
by dividing the state into two parts. The
court holds that the fourteenth amend
ment did not limit the right of state to
fix mode of choosing electors. 1t is
conceded by the Republicans that the
effect of the decision will be to give three
electoral votes to the Democrats, while
the Democrats claim four votes.
Chief Justice Fuller in announcing
the conclusion of the court on the cases,
said that the court made the announce
ment mt this time because of an exigency
suggested by counsel requiring early ac-
ton. Hereafter the cou11would file an
opinion setting forth more fully the
grounds on which it has decided the case.
In his brief announcement of the de-
cision the court said that in the case of
Mcpherson VS.. Blacker, the secretary of
state of Michigan, in which were drawn
in question the public laws of the state
OF Michigan, the supreme court had
ruled adversely to the plaintiff in error
upon the validity of the local law.
The State Court Sustained.
In so deciding the federal question was
necessary to be passed upon, and the
validity of the constitution and laws Of
the United States had been drawn into
the question because of this federal ques-
ton. The chief justice said that this
court ruled that it has jurisdiction of the
case under section 709, revised statutes.
Having established its jurisdiction in the
matter, the court then dashed to pieces
the hope of the Republicans who had
appealed the case from the Michigan SUI
premr court by affirming the decision of
the Michigan court, which had ruled that
the Miner law was constitutional.
The chief justice said that the court
ruled that, in view of the language of
the clause of the constitution giving to
the state Legislatures the right to deter
mine the method of choosing presidential
electors and of the contemporaneous
construction, it cannot he held invalid
for want of power in the state legisla-
ture to pass such law
A Victory for the Democrats.
We are clear, he added, that the clause
of the first section of article . of the con-
stitution has not been changed by the
fourteenth amendment, and that the law
is not obnoxious to that amendment.
Colonel Dutfield, Of Detroit, i'll arguing
the case for the Republicans, had in
sisted that the fourteenth amendment
established the citizenship Of the United
States where the state citizenship had
heretofore been supreme, and its Ian
guage forbidding the abridgment of the
privileges of citizens had the effect of
preventing the states from changing the
method of choosing electors then in
vogue.
The decision obliterates the last hope
of the Republicans that the Miner law
might be invalidated in court, and that
the election in the coming presidential
contest might be decided on the old plan
of giving the whole vote of the state 10
the party having plurality in the state
at large.