The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-01-05

| election of such officers II Congress
can qualify voters it can count the vote
when cast. All the Fourteenth Amendment
means is that the State Is permitted to
make qualifications for voters within the
state; that when the persons so qualified
| ofler to vote at the elections mentioned in
| the Fourteenth Amendment, their right to
vote thus conferred shall not be denied.
| Ihis view of the meaning of the Four
| teenth Amendment is confirmed by the
Fifteenth, which was adopted nearly two
years later, on March 30, 1870. The FIT
teenth Amendment is devoted exclusively
| to the right to vote. 1t is a we'll settled
principle of construction of laws and con-
situations that where a later law or con-
stitutional provision takes up and deals
with the subject of an earlier law or
constitutional provision, the later law is
assumed to swallow up the earlier one.
| so far as the two are identical in their
general nature and purpose. The Four
! teenth- Amendment deals in part with the
| right to vote; the Fifteenth Amendment
relates exclusively to that right both
amendments assume that the primary au-
thority to regulate suffrage is in the
States and not in the Federal Govern
ment. So far as the Fifteenth Amend
ment is inconsistent with the Fourte nth
it must prevail; the only limitation on
the right of the State to regulate the right
to vote therein, found in the Fifteenth
Amendment, is that the State shall not
make color or race or previous condition
of seryitude disqualification of the right
to vote. In order to make a law uncon-
stitutional, measured by the Fifteenth
Amendment, it must by its terms or ad-
ministration rest a denial of the right
to vote on color. race. or previous con-
dition; all other disqualifications are left
to the discretion of the respective States.
Nobody would dispute this if the Fifteenth
Amendment stood alone; being a later and
separate act, in and by itself, it must be
accepted as the final and exclusive ut
terance of the United States on the pre-
else subject expressed in it's provision.
any previous provision to the contrary
notwithstanding, 1t cannot be made to
appear that the Constitution of the United
States contemplates the punishment of q
State for refusing to qualify the vicious
to vote.
1t is no answer to these suggestions to
affirm dogmatieally that the words 'the
Fifteenth Amendments, require the Ie-
spective States to create that right in
favor of all males over twenty-one years,
whether ignorant, vicious, or temporarily
in the State as inhabitants If this be the
meaning of these amendments. it is not
clearly expressed, and the State cannot
be punished for violating the meaning
unless clearly expressed In order to
Justify a penalty the act punished must
come within the letter of the statute or
law. 1t is not sufficient if it be doubtful.
1t does not help the matter to cOncede
that the language of these amendments in
respect of the right to vote lacks clear
ness. II an individual were indicted for
denying to another the right to vote. the
prosecution would be required to show
that the person who was thus denied the
alleged right to vote was legally equipped
with that right by positive law of the
State; So in an attempt to indict de-
grade, or punish the State for a denial
of the right, the right must be made to
appear before it can be denied. L. can
not be eontended that the legal processes
of producing a right are the precise equiv
alent of the right itself when produced. |
The creation of right is one thing. the
existence of the right after 1t is created |
is another thing. The Fourteenth and Fiji |
teenth Amendments do not confer the |
right to vote upon anybody; the right |
to vote has no hbre until the State beSetS |
it. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend |
menis do not deal directly and in express |
terms with the processes of the State out |
of which the right to vote ultima ely |
arises but are limited to the right itself |
when once created. leaving the State |
free to create it. In interpreting these |
amendments the whole body of the Consti-
tuition must be considered. The execu- |
tive judicial and legislative officers of
the respective States are spoken of in the
Fourteenth Amendment; over the election
and conduct of these officers the State is
sovereign The Federal Government has
no power over the election of these OFF,
GERS The sum and body of the authority |
of these officers make the State 1t is
not to be supposed that the people of the
United States. through the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments. meant to dignity
the alleged rights of the ignorant and vi
cious over the safety of the State itself.
JEFFERSON CHANDLER.
Washington, Jan. 4.