The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1901-02-28
CANNOT DISFRANCHISE
Lawyer Says Proposed Ballot Law
is UnCon stitutiOnal.
He Quotes Maryland Decisions on the
Point and Supplements Them With
Others.
saturdays Baltimore News.

DC lOuONi al lAbAC pm tAlN cAAp
ject of the proposed changes in the
election law of the State to be sub
mitted to the extra session of the Leg
islature has been prepared by one of
the best-known Democratic lawyers
of the Baltimore bar.
1t treats the subject largely from
the standpoint of the Maryland law
ON the subject with only incidental
reference to the various decisions on
the same subject in the highest courts
of other States The opinion of the
gentleman in question as is proposed
by Mr.. John P Poe would be distinct
ly unconstitutional and that the
Court of Appeals would so hold.
The gentleman also says that all
rumors to the effect that Chief Judge
Alvey of the District of Columbia
Court of Appeals has advised that
such law as Mr.. Poe has proposed
would be constitutional are untrue
and that Judge Alvey has not made
any such statement.
Whether or not ballot law can be
lawfully passed by the special session
of the Legislature which will indirect
ly and by means of one form of the
ballot deprive the illiterate voter of
reasonably fair opportunity to in
diligently cast his vote depends upon
whether the power to pass such law
has been conferred upon the Legisla-
ture by the Constitution.
1t is very clear that the Constitu-
ton is to be interpreted in a common
sense way and according to the every
day acceptation of the words, and
not by any technical or artificial rule.
Chief Judge LeGrand, in delivering
the opinion in State VS.. Mace, Md,
$50, in holding that words and phrases
in the State Constitution should re-
ceive the meaning ordinarialy given
to them by the people who voted for
its adoption and should not be inter
preted in any astutely technical or
artificial sense, said
We think the Constitution ought
to have common-sense interpreta
ton, by which we mean the sense in
which it was understood by those who
adopted it, and, if it received such
construction, in our Judgment the
term debt is to be understood as an
obligation arising otherwise than
from the sentence of court for the
breach of public peace or commission
OF a crime. Although it is a well-rec-
ogniZed canon of construction that
where legal terms are used in stat
ute they are to receive their techni-
cal meaning unless the contrary plain
ly appears to have been the Intention
of the Legislature. The principle,
however, does not apply to the inter
probation of the organic law, which is
to be construed according to the ac-
ceptation of those who adopted it.
The provisions of the Constitution
regulating the right to vote are Sec
tion of Article of the Constitution,
which reads as follows:
All elections shall be by ballot; and
every male citizen of the United States
of the age of 81 years or upward, who
has been a resident of the State for
one year, and of the Legislative dis
trict of Baltimore city, or of the coun-
ty in which he may offer to vote, for
six months next preceding the cleo
ton, shall be entitled to vote in the
ward or election district in which he
resides at all elections hereafter to be
held in this State.
Article of the Declaration of Rights
reads as follows:
That the right of the people to par
ticipate in the Legislature is the best
security of liberty and the foundation
of all free government; for this pur-
pose, elections ought to be free and
frequent; and every male citizen, hav-
ing the qualifications prescribed by
the Constitution, ought to have the
right of suffrage.
The Court of Appeals has repeated
ly recognized that the plain and OBJ
vious meaning of these clauses of the
Constitution was that every male cit
izen 81 years of age and resident of
the State and county in which he Of
fers to vote is entitled to exercise that
franchise.
For example: In answering the con-
tention made by the Reform League
that man could not vote unless he
had fixed abode in some house, the
Court of Appeals speaking through
Judge Page, said in Langhammer VS..
Munter, so Md, 500:
Probably it was borne in mind (by
the trainers of the Constitution that
numbers of citizens, through misfor-
tune or otherwise, were without
dwelling places, but there is no cyl
dence to be found in any part of the
Constitution that these were to be
denied the privilege of the elective
franchise. On the contrary, it seems
to have been the purpose to confer
the right of suffrage upon every male
citizen who has attained the age of 81
years, only requiring, for wise rea-
sons that every such person shall
have resided in the State one year
and in the voting district six months.
In his concurring opinion in Kemp