The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-09-15
THE SUFFRAGE CASE.
Continued from Page 81


ing the authority of parent before
and after the majority of his child.
While the territorial condition con-
tinues, whatever political power its
people exercise, must be by authority
Of Congress
In all government affairs whatever
the people of a territory do, must be
authorized, and they must abstain
from doing what is forbidden. Their
elections, even on subjects relating to
statehood, are territorial elections,
and their voters are the electorate of
the territory. In the compact for
act for themselves and their success
sors, the people of the future state,
and the latter are bound by the condi-
tions adopted by the former, and 1t
seems like stumbling on a small
obstacle to say the people of the terri
tory may bind the state forever to
all the conditions and limitations to
preserve the authority of the general
government and cannot, by the accept
ance of a permission to elect the first
state officers in advance of statehood,
bind the state to this temporary and
comparatively unimportant thing. IL
this cannot be done, the result is not
that the people of the territory are
sovereign as to this, but that the
state will not be bound. The grant of
sovereignty, as to the election of
state officers, and the legislative pow
ers of the convention, must be shown
by the respondent, and the claim
seems to rest on differences drawn
from sections five and nineteen of the
enabling act. Section five provides for
a Representative in Congress, and that
the representative, governor and
other officers provided for in the con-
stitution, may be elected on the same
day the constitutional election is held.
Section 10 provides that the con-
vention may by ordinance provide for
the election of officers for a, full state
government including members of the
legislature and representative in
Congress, at the time for the election
to ratify or reject the constitution.
In these provisions are to be found,
if at all, the grant of sovereignty to
the people on this subject, and of
legislative powers to the convention:
and on these provisions rest the in
ference that, as to this subject, the
constitution is deemed in force, that
gress has no power to qualify the
electorate.
1t will be seen the scope of the ordi-
d,
previously referred to, the convention
is to form constitution and state
government as one instrument. In
this the offices are created and the
terms, qualifications and duties of the
officers specified Section provides
for representative in Congress and
section fixes the day of the cleo
ton for which all the regulations are
provided by law. There was but one
tn 10
provide the state election should be
held In 1895, and if 1t omitted to so
provide, state officers would not be
elected until after statehood should be
attained. Everything else was pro-
vided. Whether deciding this was in
the nature Of legislative provision, is
only a matter of words. 1t was a
special power granted, and it could
only be exercised under and accord
it was exercised, the authorization of
Congress is the sole authority for the
election and there is no ground for
the inference that legislative powers
to qualify voters were given, or for the
fictions that the constitution was in
force and the people sovereign, as to
this election, or for the further struc-
tural conclusion that Congress by grant
ing this limited power abdicated for
torial election.
If the legislative power to qualify
voters for the state election had been
granted to the convention, it has failed
to exercise it, and even did not know
it, for it refused by a strong ma
jority vote to attempt to enfranchise
women for the election of 1895, and sec
tons II and IA of the schedule only
repeat the qualifications named in
section of the enabling act, and refer
to qualified voters in the words of sec
ton 4, and, except infthe proposed con-
stitution which we cannot consider in
force, no other qualifications are men
toned.
In passing the first branch of the
case, a more extended reference to
prior laws of Congress was deferred
because those laws, if applicable at all,
are applicable to the whole case.
The law forbidding woman suffrage
is not repealed by anything in the
enabling act, and is not in conflict
with that act. 1t is contended for the
respondent, that it does not apply to
elections held in the proceedings to
obtain statehood. 1t is true this is
new subject; but the elections are ter
ritorial elections held by the people
voters. The effect Of these elections,
from the nature of the case, reach to
and bind the people of the future state,
either as successors, or as the same
people. Congress knew of this law,
and by limiting the electorate to male
citizens evinced an intention to main
tain its provisions, and in section 2,
Congress directs the registration shall
be made under the laws of the United
States and the territory, except as to
the change in the oath. There is no
escape from this reference. 1t is a deli
cate thing for court to set aside
positive act of Congress on some re-
mote and speculative fiction contrary
to the plain facts, and if the respon-
dents case depended on this point
only, we do not see how she could
maintain it.
The registration oath prescribed in
| the Edmunds-Tucker law of Congress
is in force as to general elections By
section 2, and as to elections relating
to statehood, Congress authorized a
| modification, and the provision is
equivalent to re-enactment in the
modified form for the purpose Of these
elections. There is nothing in the en-
! abling act repeating or in conflict with
this provision. There is here no room
for an argument that Congress did
not intend this to apply to the new
subject, and there is room for an ar.
gument, derived from this, that Con-
gress was not forgetful of it's prior
enactments and intended them to re-
main in force unless repealed or mod
| flied The respondent is not a male
| citizen, and cannot register or vote
4I,o Of ftic 10