Case Name: Frieszleben v. Shallcross et al.
Court: Delaware Court of Errors and Appeals
Jurisdiction: Delaware
Decision Date: 1890-01-29
Citations: 9 Houst. 1
Docket Number: 
Parties: Frieszleben v. Shallcross et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: Delaware Reports
Volume: 14
Pages: 1–112

Head Matter:
Frieszleben v. Shallcross et al.
Statutes, Construction of—Constitutionality of—Delinquent Poll Taxables—Dropping of from Assessment List.
The Constitution of Delaware provides that every elector must have paid a county tax within two years next before the election, which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election.
The act of Delaware, passed April 10, 1873, provides that when persons assessed and liable to pay poll tax only fails to pay the same to the collector of county taxes, the said collector returning the same as uncollected and making proof to the levy court of his having complied with the requirements ot the law as to public notice of times and places where he would receive taxes as required by law, and having attended thereupon, the said taxes shall be allowed to the collector as delinquencies and the names of such delinquents shall be dropped from the assessment list by the levy court and shall not be placed thereon again for a period of one year from and after the date of such allowance.
Said law cannot operate to deprive an elector of his right to vote without his co-operation or consent. He who will not contribute his part to support the government that protects him ought not to be allowed, by the use of the ballot, to neutralize the vote of another, who does. And he who will not give himself the trouble to see that he is assessed sleeps upon his rights.
The said legislation of 1873 does not act to disfranchise a voter in spite of himself by preventing him from paying his taxes, and never even temporarily, except as a consequence of his own neglect, and therefore cannot be held to be unconstitutional.
The acts of 1873 were enacted by the legislature in the legitimate exercise of its taxing power, and were appropriate and necessary to the due execution thereof; and were in their primary purpose and design, a regulation of the assessment and collection of county taxes, and but incidentally and secondarily a regulation for the qualification of electors.
The General Assembly, according to the true meaning and intent of the Constitution of this State, has authority to exclude from the assessment, in any particular year, a citizen who has been ascertained, by a mode appropriate and essential to the effectual exercise of the taxing power, to be, in the legislative judgment, an unproductive taxable for that year, and said power is paramount to any alleged right of the unproductive citizen to be assessed.
(January 29, 1890.)
Case stated reserved from Superior Court, New Castle county.
In February, 1885, the name of the plaintiff was, on a general assessment, duly placed upon the assessment list for the Sixth ward of the city of Wilmington; and the levy court of New Castle county afterwards, in "the spring of the same year, duly laid a poll-tax upon him. On the 2d day of March, 1886, the plaintiff, who had not paid said poll-tax, was returned by the collector of county taxes for the collection district, including the Sixth ward of said city, to said levy court, as a delinquent; and thereafter, on the 24th day of March, in the same year, the defendants, composing and sitting as said levy court, allowed said poll-tax as delinquent, and caused the name of the plaintiff to be struck and dropped from the assessment list • whereby no tax was assessed or laid upon the plaintiff for the year 1886, and he was consequently deprived of all opportunity at any time to pay a county tax for that year, and thereby qualify himself to vote at the general election in November of that year, although, in all respects save the payment of a county tax, qualified as an elector. The levy court had no evidence that the plaintiff was dead, or had left the state, or the Sixth ward of said city, or said collection district. The only evidence before said court was the collector’s return of the plaintiff “ as delinquent.” The action of the defendants in causing the name of the plaintiff to be struck and dropped from the assessment list, and continuing to leave it off the same, was in strict accordance with the provisions of section 1 of the act entitled “ An act in relation to the collection of taxes in this state,” passed at Dover, April 10, 1873, and the provisions of section 9 of the act entitled “ An act in relation to the duties of assessors, and of the levy courts, in the several counties of the state,” passed at Dover, April 9, 1873. Section 1 of the act of April 10, 1873, provides that, in the case of persons assessed and liable to pay poll-taxes, upon the return of the collector in form and verified as therein provided, it shall be the duty of the levy court “ to allow said collector, as delinquencies, the taxes uncollected by him, and the names of such delinquents shall be dropped from the assessment list by the levy court, and shall not be placed thereon again for a period of twelve months from and after the date of such allowance.” Section 9 of the act of April 9, 1873, (Bev. Code, 1874, p. 84,) provides “that it shall not be lawful for any assessor or any levy court, upon the personal application of any one, or otherwise, to place upon the assessment in any hundred the name of any person who, having failed to pay the county tax assessed against him or her for the preceding year, was returned and allowed as a delinquent, until after the expiration of the twelve months from the time such allowance as delinquent was made by the levy court.” The defendants reply upon the foregoing provisions for the justification of their action in causing the name of the plaintiff to be struck and dropped from the assessment list, and continuing to leave it off the same. The plaintiff had not paid any county tax within the space of two years next preceding the general election in 1886. This suit is an action on the case, brought for the recovery of damages resulting to the plaintiff by reason of his having been deprived by the defendants of all opportunity of paying a county tax for 1886, and thereby qualifying himself to vote at said general election. The questions reserved for the decision of the court of errors and appeals are : First, whether or not the above provisions of the legislature of 1873 are unconstitutional and void; and,; secondly, if said provisions be unconstitutional and void, whether or not the defendants are personally liable in damages for their action in the premises.
Edward G. Bradford, Levi C. Bird, and Anthony Higgins, for plaintiff:
If the provisions under which the defendants seek to justify their action are unconstitutional, this court should not hesitate to declare their invalidity.
In Bailey v. Railroad Co., 4 Harr. 389, 402, 403, Harrington, J., delivering the opinion of the Court of Errors and Appeals, says:
“The judiciary derives existence and power from the same high source (the constitution.) Its business is to administer justice according to law; that is, according to the constitutions of the Government, and the laws passed by’ the Legislature within the sphere of its authority, and in conformity to the constitution. None other are laws of the land; having any force or effect. In a case, therefore, of plain, palpable conflict between the constitution and an act of assembly, the Court cannot do otherwise than distinguish between that which is law, and that which is not. And, in doing so, so far from arrogating any right to control the Legislature in any of its constitutional powers, it is but asserting that which forms the basis of all our institutions, the supremacy of the constitution itself, and the entire dependance of every department upon the ultimate sovereignty of the people.”
The purpose of the provisions of the legislation of 1873 upon which the defendants rely was either to regulate the assessment and payment of county taxes, or to regulate the elective franchise or its exercise, or, possibly, the attainment of both these ends.
Upon the assumption that the purpose of those provisions was the regulation of the assessment and payment of county taxes, can they be sustained as constituting a fiscal regulation of the State, incidentally affecting the elective franchise, or its exercise ?
Can those provisions be sustained as a regulation of the elective franchise or its exercise ?
The provisions of the legislation of 1873 upon which the defendants rely, considered as a fiscal regulation of the State, are unconstitutional and void, as violative of the Constitution of Delaware.
The Constitution of Delaware no where imposes any restriction upon the exercise of the sovereign right of taxation, but leaves the legislature clothed with full power to provide for the apportionment, assessment and collection of taxes.
The power of taxation necessarily inheres in every sovereign state as the necessary means of self-perpetuation.
All constitutional guaranties of private rights are to be read in the light of this principle.
But taxation is one thing; confiscation or extortion is another thing.
The former is constitutional; the latter is 'inconsíitm o1: : and whether in a given case the legislature is undertaking tu p- ■ vide for taxation, on the one hand, or, on the other, for confiscation or extortion, depends upon the essential nature of taxation.
Section 7 of Article 1 of the Constitution of Delaware provides by necessary implication, though not in express terms, that no person shall be “ deprived of life, liberty or property, unless by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land.”
Cooley’s Const. Lim., 351; Ervine’s Appeal, 16 Pa. St., 256; Banning v. Taylor, 24 Id., 289.
The phrase “ law of the land” is equivalent to the words “due process of law,” and does not mean a statute working the wrong complained of.
Taylor v. Porter, 4 Hill, 140; Cooley’s Const. Lim., 353, 354; Brown v. Hummel, 6 Pa. St., 86.
Any attempt under the guise of taxation at confiscation or extortion is forbidden by the above constitutional provision.
Cooley says: “ In an exercise of the power to tax, the purpose always is, that a common burden shall be sustained by common contributions, regulated by some fixed general rule, and appor tioned by the Jaw according to some uniform ratio of equality. While therefore the power is great and imperative, it is not arbitrary ; it rests upon fixed principles of justice, which have for their object the protection of the tax payer against exceptional'and invidious exactions, and it is to have effect through established rules, operating impartially.”
Cooley on taxation, p. 2.
And again: Vast as is the power of the government to levy taxes upon its citizens, there are nevertheless limitations upon it of a very distinct and positive character, which inhere in the very nature of the power itself. Some of these limitations are commonly declared in the written constitutions, but the declaration is rather from abundant" caution than from necessity, as the limitations are equally imperative whether Thus declared or not.” Id. p. 41.
It is not in the power of the legislature, under the guise of taxation, to give the property of A to B, or to impose the whole burden of a tax for the State upon one person or upon one county. Such absolute, arbitrary powers have no place in a government regulated by law. Burroughs on Taxation, Sec. 26.
“ To compel individuals to contribute money or property for the public use without reference to any common ratio, and without requiring the sum paid by one piece of property, or by one person to bear any relation whatever to that paid by another, would be a forced contribution, not a tax, within the sense of that term as applied to the exercise of powers by an enlightened government.” Id. Sec. 51.
“ Everything that may be done under the name of taxation is not necessarily a tax; and it may happen that an oppressive burden imposed by the government, when it comes to be carefully scrutinized, will prove, instead of a tax, to be an unlawful confiscation of property, unwarranted by any principle of constitutional government.” Cooley’s Const. Lim., 487.
“ It is of the very essence of taxation that it be levied with equality and uniformity, and to this end, that there should be some system of apportionment.
Where the burden is common, there should be common contribution to discharge it. Taxation is the equivalent for the protection which the government affords to the persons and property of its citizens; and as all are alike protected, so- all alike should bear the burden, in proportion to the interests secured * * * ^ In this particular the State constitutions have been very specific though in providing for equality and uniformity they have done little more than state in precise language a principle of constitutional law which, whether declared or not, would inhere in the power to tax.’’ Id. 495.
“ Whatever may be the basis of the taxation, the requirement that it should be uniform is universal.” Id. 499.
He states as one of the essentials of uniformity in taxation that “ the apportionment of taxes should reach all the objects of taxation within the district.” Id. 501.
In Sharpless v. Mayor of Philadelphia, 21 Pa. St., 147, 168, Black, C. J., delivering the opinion of the Court, says :
“ But I do not mean to assert that every act which the Legislature may choose to call a tax law is constitutional. The whole of a public burden cannot be thrown on a single individual, under pretence of taxing him, nor can one county be taxed to pay the debts of another, nor one portion of the State to pay the debts of the whole State. These things are not excepted from the powers of the Legislature, because they did not pass to the assembly by the general grant of legislative power. A prohibition was not necessary. An Act of Assembly commanding or authorizing them to be done, would not be a law, but an attempt to pronounce a judicial sentence, order or decree.”
In Hammett v. Philadelphia, 65 Pa. St., 146, an act authorizing the city of Philadelphia to assess the cost of maintaining Broad street upon the owners of property abutting thereon was declared unconstitutional,
In Washington avenue, 69 Pa. St., 352, an act laying an assessment for the construction of a road mainly through agricultural land upon property holders in the vicinity was held unconstitutional, as being a local assessment for general benefit.
Agnew, J., delivering the opinion of the Court says, pp. 363, 364:
“ I admit that the power to tax is unbounded by any express limit in the Constitution—that it may be exercised (o the full extent of the public exigency. I concede that it differs from the power of eminent domain, and has no thought of compensation by way of return for that which it takes and applies to the public good, further than all derive benefit from the purpose to which it is applied.
But nevertheless taxation is bounded in its exercise by its own nature, essential characteristics and purpose. It must therefore visit all alike in a reasonable practicable way of which the legislature may judge, "but within' the just limits of what is taxation. Like the rain it may fall upon the people in districts and by turns, but still it must be public in its purpose, and reasonably just and equal in its distribution, and cannot sacrifice individual right by a palpably unjust exaction. To do so is confiscation, not taxation, extortion, not assessment, and falls within the clearly implied restriction in the Bill of Rights * * Laws which cast the burden of the public on a few individuals no matter what the pretence or how seeming their analogy to constitutional enactments, are in their essence despotic and tyrannical, and it becomes- the judiciary to stand firmly by the fundamental laws, in defence of those general, great and essential principles of liberty and free government, for the establishment and perpetuation of which the Constitution itself was ordained.”
Cooley says with respect to -poll taxes: “ These are not a common resort in modern times, and only in a few cases could they be either just or politic. As they regard only the person, they must be shared equally by all, except under governments where privileged orders are recognized and where they might be graded according to the orders to which the several persons taxed belong.” Cooley on Taxation, p. 18.
He quotes with unqualified approval the following language from the opinion of the Court in City of Lexington v. McQuillan, 9 Dana., 513.
“ An exact equalization of the burdens of taxation is unattainable and utopian. But still there are well defined limits within which the practical equality of the Constitution may be observed, and which, therefore, should be deemed impassable barriers to legislative power. Taxation may not be universal, but it must be general and uniform. Hence, if a capitation tax be laid, none of the class of persons thus taxed can be constitutionally exempt upon any other ground than that of public service * * * Although there may be a discrimination in the subjects of taxation, still persons in the same class, and property of the same kind, must generally be subjected alike to the same common burden.” Id. 178, 179.
State v. Township Committee of Readington, 36 N. J. L., 66.
Until the enactment of the legislation of 1873 our system of county taxation was in perfect accord with the foregoing principles.
That system was intended and calculated to secure the assessment each year of every individual belonging to any and every class of taxables.
And it was further intended and calculated to effect equal and just taxation of all persons assessable under the law; it being the duty of the Levy Court to “ apportion and lay such taxes to and upon the assessment aforesaid * * at and according to a certain rate for each of said taxes upon every hundred dollars of the said assessments, and so pro rata.”
But with the enactment of the legislation of 1873, a new order of things was instituted in gross disregard and violation of the fundamental principles of taxation.
Arbitrary and oppressive exaction has taken the place of equal and just taxation.
It is true that the legislature has large discretion in classifying the persons or subjects liable to taxation.
But the legislature has attempted to ¿o beyond any legitimate or constitutional classsification and arbitrarily to discriminate, in the assesment and collection of taxes, between persons belonging to the same class.
It practically confers each year immunity from taxation upon thousands of poll taxables, and imposes' in whole or in part the burden they shoud bear upon the remaining poll taxables.
The poll taxables, in contradistinction to the property taxables, are a class by themselves, one and indivisable.
That class consists of all freemen above the age of twenty-one years, who are not property owners.
Yet the legislature has undertaken to separate this single and indivisable class of taxables into two groups, viz.:
1. Those who, in the preceding year, did not pay their poll tax.
2. Those who, in the preceding year, paid their poll tax.
And upon this arbitrary sub-classification the legislature has undertaken to clothe the first group with immunity from taxation for the succeeding year, and impose, in whole or in part, the burden they should bear upon the second group.
In the light of the foregoing principles, it is submitted that this attempt is unconstitutional.
Human ingenuity will in vain be tortured to discover any legitimate reason or justification for this sub-classification.
Can it be assumed that the legislature intended by this course to force or induce the payment of poll taxes ?
How can promised immunity from taxation serve as a spur or inducement for payment of taxes ?
Possibly it may be suggested that the consideration that, if the poll taxable does not pay his tax in one year, he may be dropped from the assessment list and consequently not have an opportunity to qualify himself to vote by the payment of a tax in the succeeding year, may induce him to pay his tax in the first year.
But this is virtually to disfranchise him for the mere non-payment of a poll tax in the first year, and is clearly forbidden by the Constitution.
For, as will be more fully shown hereafter, when the Constitution provides that “ the legislature may impose the forfeiture of the right of suffrage as a punishment for crime,” it declares in effect that such right shall not be forfeited for any offence or delinquency short of crime.
The legislature, under the Constitution, could no more authorize the sub-classification in question than it could validly have provided that all poll taxables who had not attended divine worship a certain number of times during the preceding year, or who were not of high moral character, or who were cross-eyed or turned their toes inward while walking, should enjoy immunity from taxation.
The guaranties of the Constitution require that the same rule of taxation shall be applied to all persons who are in the same position with respect to the payment of the tax to be levied.
Therefore, if the tax be upon persons as persons¡ all the individuals comprised in the class of persons designated as poll taxables must bear their share of the common burden.
For logically and necessarily each of them is in the same position with respect to the payment of such tax.
Nor can it be of any moment that delinquent poll taxables enjoy such immunity for only one year, or two years, as the case may be.
Whether they be relieved temporarily or permanently from taxation, the principle is the same; the difference is merely one of degree.
And relieving thousands of poll taxables from the payment of tax and imposing the burden they should bear in whole or in part upon the remaining poll taxables is the same in principle as placing the whole burden upon one or more designated individuals of the class.
The difference between the two cases is altogether one of degree.
The legislation of 1873, considered as a regulation of taxation, therefore clearly violates the Constitution of Delaware.
The provisions of the legislation of 1873 upon which the defendants rely, considered as a fiscal regulation of the state, are unconstitutional and void, as violative of the Constitution of the United States.
The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of tho United States declares: . ' '
“ Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any pers»L • Tun its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”„
The prohibitions of the amendment are addressed to State agencies. In Ex-parte Virginia, 100 U. S., 339, 347, the Court say:
“ A State acts by its legislative, its executive or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other way. The constitutional provision, therefore, must mean that no agency of the State, or of the officers or agents by whom its powers are exerted, shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Whoever, by virtue of public position under a State government, deprives another of property, life or liberty, without due process of law, or denies or takes away the equal protection of the laws, violates the constitutional inhibition.”
It follows that an act of the legislature undertaking to require or authorize the denial by the officers or agents of the State of such equal protection is forbidden by the amendment.
By it the equal protection of the laws is extended to all persons within the jurisdiction of the State, and secures them against unjust and unequal exactions of all kinds.
In Minneapolis Railway Co. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26, 28, the Court say:
“ That clause does undoubtedly prohibit discriminating and partial legislation by any State in favor of particular persons as against others in like condition.
Equality of protection implies not merely equal accessibility to the Courts for the prevention or redress of wrongs and the enforcement of rights, but equal exemption with others in like condition from charges and liabilities of every kind.”
In the case of In re Ah Fong, 3 Sawyer, 144, 157, the Court speaking of the fourteenth amendment say:
“ The great fundamental rights of all citizens are thus secured against any state deprivation, and all persons, whether native or foreign,- high or low, are, whilst within the jurisdiction of the United States, entitled to the equal protection of the laws. Discriminating and partial legislation, favoring particular persons, or against particular persons of the same class, is now prohibited. Equality of privilege is the constitutional right of all citizens, and equality of protection is the constitutional right of all persons. An equality of protection implies not only equal accessibility to the Courts for the prevention or redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of rights, but equal exemption with others of the same class from all charges and burdens of every kind.” Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S., 27, 31.
But the^guaranty of the equal protection of the laws would be largely- nugatory if the State were at liberty to enact unequal laws applying to person's of the same class or in the same position.
The broad purpose of the amendment- in such case could in most instances readily be defeated by hostile legislation in indirect form.
The pledge of equal protection of the laws is therefore the pledge of the protection of equal laws.
In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S., 356, 369, the Court say of the fourteenth amendment:
“ It says: “ Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any difference of race, of color or of nationality ■ and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws.”
In County of San Mateo v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 8 Sawyer, 238, it was held that certain provisions of the Constitution and laws of California relating to taxation were forbidden by the fourteenth amendment and were unconstitutional and void. Field, J., delivering the opinion of the Court says, p. 251.
“ Whatever the State may do, it cannot deprive any one within its jurisdiction of the equal “protection of the laws. And by equal protection of the laws is meant equal security under them to every one, on similar terms, in his life, his liberty, his property5 and in the pursuit of happiness.
It not only implies the right of each to resort, on the same terms with others, to the courts of the country for the security of his person and property, the prevention and redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts, but also his exemption from any greater burdens or charges than such as are equally imposed upon all others under like circumstances. Unequal exactions in every form, or under any pretence, are absolutely forbidden, and of course unequal taxation, for it is in that form that oppressive burdens are usually laid. It is not possible to conceive of equal protection under any system of laws where arbitrary and unequal taxation is permissible; where different persons may be taxed on their property of the same kind, similarly situated, at different rates; where, for instance, one may be taxed at one per cent, on the value of his property, another at two or five per cent., or where one may be thus taxed according to his color, because he is white, or black, or brown, or yellow, or according to any other rule than that of a fixed rate proportionate to the value of his property ’ * * What is called for under a constitutional provision requiring equality and xxniformity in the taxation of property must be equally called for by the Fourteenth Amendment. The forced contribution from one which would follow taxation of his property without reference to a common ratio would be inconsistent with that equal protection which the amendment requires the State to extend to every person within its jurisdiction.”
Again, speaking of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court say, p. 261:
“ It does require that in all such legislation, hostile and partial discrimination against any class or person shall be avoided; that the States shall impose no greater burdens upon any one than upon othei’s of the community under like circumstances, nor deprive any one of rights, which others similarly situated are allowed to enjoy. It forbids the State to lay its hand more heavily upon one than upon another under like conditions. It stands in the Constitution as a perpetual shield against all unequal and partial legislation by the States, and the injustice which follows from it, whether directed against the most humble, or the most powerful, against the despised laborer from China, or the envied master of millions.”
County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 9 Sawyer, 165, was a case similar to the last.
Further citation of authority or argument is not required to shoxv that the legislation of 1873 is in conflict with the broad policy of the fourteenth amendment.
It is therefore submitted that considered as an attempt to regulate taxation, such legislation is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States.
The provisions of the legislation of 1873, upon which the defendants rely, considered as a regulation of county taxation, are unconstitutional and void under both the Constitution of Delaware and the constitution of the United States, by reason of the power conferred upon collectors of county taxes to discriminate arbitrarily and oppressively as between delinquent poll taxables with respect to their liability to pay tax for the succeeding year.
While the legislation of 1873 provides that delinquent poll taxables who are duly returned by the collector to the Levy Court as having failed to pay their poll tax shall be dropped from and remain off the assessment list for at least a year, it nowhere requires the collector to so return all delinquents, but confers upon him unrestrained power of choice as to whom he will return as delinquent.
Thus the collector is clothed with authority, at his mere whim, or from favor, malice or party zeal, without check or hindrance to decide, without appeal from his decision, what delinquent poll "taxableá shall, and Avhat delinquent poll taxables shall not, pay tax for the ensuing year.
His mere ipse dixit is a final determination whether or not thousands of delinquent' poll taxables shall, on account of their delinquency, enjoy immunity from taxation for that period, to the detriment of other taxables.
He, under the legislation of 1873, arbitrarily decides whether great masses of the voting population of the State, in whom practically rests the whole sovereignty of the people, shall, or shall not, have the opportunity to pay tax and thereby qualify themselves to exercise the most fundamental political right of American citizens.
Any legislation which carries in it such arbitrary power of unequal and oppressive administration as to destroy the equality of rights guaranteed by the Constitution is forbidden by that instrument. " , \
In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S., 356, 373, the Court say: “ In the present cases we are not obliged to reason from the probable to the actual, and pass upon the validity of the ordinances complained of, as tried merely by the opportunities which tljeir terms aftord, of unequal and unjust discrimination in their administration. For the cases present the ordinances in actual operation, and the facts shown establish an administration directed so exclusively against a particular class of persons as to warrant and require the conclusion, that, whatever may have been "the intent of the ordinances as adopted, they are applied by the public authorities charged with their administration, and thus representing the State itself, with a mind so unequal and oppressive as to amount to a practical denial by the State of that equal protection of the laws which is secured to the petitioners, as to all other persons, by the broad and benighn provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Though the law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appearance-, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution.”
But here the law is not “ fair on its face” or “ impartial in appearance.”
It does not either forbid or command the return by the collector to the Levy Court of any or all poll taxables, who have failed to pay their tax, as delinquent.
It assumes, as is manifest from the nature of its provisions, that the collector will return some as delinquent, but contemplates and intends that the collector shall not return all as delinquent.
Otherwise, the law would have required all poll taxables who failed to pay their tax to be returned as delinquent.
The law thus was enacted clearly with the expectation or intention that it should be so administered as to destroy constitutional equality of rights, and is therefore unconstitutional and void.
The primary purpose of the provisions of the legislation of 1873 upon which the defendants rely, was not the regulation of taxation, but the regulation of the elective franchise or its exercise.
If the legislature had provided that the delinquent poll taxable should in the succeeding year pay not only the tax properly falling upon him for that year, but also the amount which he should have paid theretofore, in relief of tax payers not at fault, such a provision, however unsound in principle, might be considered as having been intended as a proper regulation of taxation.
But to reward delinquency by exemption from taxation, and to punish those not at fault by loading them with the burden which should rest upon others, is a course so foreign to all principles relating to taxation as inevitably to produce the conviction that the primary purpose of the legislature was not the regulation of taxation.
The rule that an individual is presumed to intend the natural consequences of his acts equally applies to the case of a legislature.
In Henderson et al. v. Mayor of N. Y. et al., 92 U. S., 258, 268, the Court say:
“ In whatever language a statute may be framed, its purpose must be determined by its natural and reasonable effect.”
In Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703, 710, the Court say:
“ The motives of the legislators considered as the purpose they had in view will always be presumed to be to accomplish that which follows as the natural and reasonable effect of- their enactments.”
The provisions of the legislation of 1873, upon which the defendants rely, considered as a regulation of the elective franchise or its exercise, are unconstitutional and void, as violative of the Constitution of Delaware.
The primary function of written constitutions is rather the recognition and regulation of pre-existing rights fundamental in their nature, and their protection against assault or encroachment on the part of the State, than the creation of new rights.
Cooley says:
“ In considering State constitutions we must not commit the ■ mistake of supposing that, because individual rights are guarded and protected by them, they must also be considered as owing their orign to them. These instruments measure the powers of the rulers, but they do not measure the rights of the governed. ‘ What is a constitution, and what are its objects ? It is easier to tell what it is not than what it is. It is not the beginning of a community, nor the origin of private rights; it is not the fountain of law, nor the incipient state of government; it is not the cause, but consequence, of personal and political freedom • it grants no rights to the people, but is the creature of their power, the instrument of their convenience. Designed for their protection in the enjoyment of the rights and powers which they possessed before the constitution was made, it is but the frame work of the political government, and necessarily based upon the pre-existing condition of laws, rights, habits, and modes of thought. There is nothing primitive in it: it is all derived from a known source. It presupposes an organized society, law, order, property, personal freedom, love of political liberty, and enough of cultivated intelligence to know how to guard it against the encroachments of tyranny. A written constitution is in every instance a limitation upon the powers of government in the hands of agents; for there never was a written republican constitution which delegated to functionaries all the latent powers which lie dormant in every nation, and are boundless in extent; and incapable of definition.” Cooley on Const. Lim., 36.
In the United States the doctrine is firmly rooted that there are vested in the people certain inherent and inalienable rights essential to the welfare and happiness of mankind.
Butcher's Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746, 756.
The doctrine of the innate dignity and sovereignty of manhood thus underlying our distinctive American liberty gives color, and breadth and grandeur to our political institutions.
It imperatively demands an equality of civil rights among all men.
The individual as a member of the State, having equal essential worth and dignity with all others is therefore entitled to equality with all others in those fundamuntal rights of person, of property and of occupation, the security of which is the chief aim of civilized government. 1 Webster’s Works, 77.
The Declaration of Rights in this State in 1776 proclaimed that “all government of right orignates from the people;” that “ the people of this state have the sole, exclusive and inherent right of governing and regulating the internal police of the same; and that “ the right in the people to participate in the legislature is the foundation of liberty and of all free government.” 1 Del. Laws, App. 79.
Our Bill of Rights declares :
“ Through divine goodness, all men have by nature the right of worshipping and serving their creator according to the dictates of their consciences, of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring and protecting reputation and property, and in general of attaining objects suitable to their condition, without injury by one to anothr; and as these rights are essential to their welfare, for the due exercise thereof, power is inherent in them; and therefore all just authority in the institution of political society is derived from the people, and established with their consent, to advance their happiness.
The same provisions are found in the Constitution of the State adopted in 1792. 1 Del. Laws XXVIII.
Section 4 of Article IV of the Constitution of the United States provides that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.”
The sovereignty of the people and .their inherent right of self-government must be accepted as an undeniable truth.
But the ballot is the only means by which the people can exercise their inherent sovereignty and enjoy the right of self-government.
In Auld v. Walton, 12 La. Am., 129, 139, the Court say:
“ The sovereign, in this land, is the people, and the ballot is the expression of the sovereign will.”
The right to vote is thus the corner stone upon which rest our free institutions and the preservation of our rights and liberties.
This right, strictly considered, is not a natural right; for it has its origin in organized society, without which it could not exist.
Where the right exists, it is, however, a supreme and fundamental right vested in the citizen, as sharing in the sovereignty of the people.
In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S., 356, 370, the Court say:
“ Though not regarded strictly as a natural right, but as a privilege merely conceded by society according to its will, under certain conditions, nevertheless it is regarded as a fundamental political right, because preservative of all rights.”
In Brown v Hummel, 6 Pa. St., 86, 93, the Court say:
“ The most important of all our franchises—the right of an elector and citizen—cannot, in a confined sense, be called property. It is not assets to pay debts, nor does it descend to the heir or administrator. But who does not feel its value; and who but would turn pale if he thought he could be deprived of it without hearing or trial, by an Act of Assembly ?”
But the right to vote is not, and in the nature of things, cannot be be universal.
By the common judgment of all communities enjoying the right of self-government certain classes of individuals are regarded as disqualified or as lacking the qualifications for the exercise of the elective franchise and are excluded therefrom.
Such exclusion results from actual or presumed inability to properly exercise the right to vote or other considerations of social economy.
Thus infants and criminals are excluded from considerations of inability or unfitness; and women by reason of social policy and their liability to undue influence.
But whenever in the United States certain classes of citizens are excluded by the fundamental law of a State from the enjoyment of the elective franchise, the exclusion grows out of and is based upon their actual or presumed unfitness to properly exercise the sovereign power of self-government.
Those who are not so excluded have vested in them practically the whole sovereign power of the State, to be exercised through the instrumentality of the ballot.
And the power thus vested in them is a high and sacred trust; for its exercise vitally concerns the life, liberty and property not only of those who wield it but of all the other classes in the State.
Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the organic law, while excluding those who are deemed incapable of properly exercising the elective franchise, should clearly point out the class of citizens who are the depositaries of the sovereignty of the State.
Very high authority has declared that “the definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government.”
The Federalist, No. 51.
Accordingly the people of the different States in framing their constitutions were careful to describe the class of individuals who were to exercise the right of suffrage.
The class of citizens thus pointed out were intended, without increase or diminution by legislative action, to wield the sovereignty of the State until otherwise provided by the alteration of the Constitution.
For the idea cannot reasonably be entertained for a moment that the people of the State, in adopting their organic law creating a legislature and delegating to it the exercise of only a portion of the sovereign power of the people for the purpose of government, intended that their creature should have the right to strip them of their sovereignty.
They did not intend that the servant should be above his master, or the creature superior to its creator. ,x
Nor did they intend that their leg islature — their mere agent and servant—should- have power to exclude any of the class of citi zens in whom they had vested practically the whole sovereignty of the State from the exercise of the right of suffrage.
For the same legislative power which could deny the right to one could deny it to all, and put an end to self-government.
Therefore no legislature has either the right or the power to deny, restrict or interfere with the exercise of the elective franchise as recognized by the Constitution.
The constitutional provisions for the exercise of that supreme political right are from the essential nature of the principles upon which free government is based to be liberally construed.
In United States v. Slater, 4 Woods, 356, the Court say :
“ Our government is founded on the elective franchise. The right to exercise this franchise is declared, defined and guaranteed by organic provisions superior to any of the departments of the government. The legislature cannot enlarge it or restrict it, and can only regulate it so far as their authority to do so is expressly, or by necessary implication, given in the Constitution. Much less may the courts presume to restrict it by construction. On the contrary, the whole spirit of our institutions constrains the courts to give our organic provisions, on the subject of the enjoyment of the right of suffrage, such a construction as will permit the most liberal exercise of this supreme right which is at all reasonable consistent with the terms of those provisions.”
In Henshaw v. Foster, 9 Pick. 312, 316, Parker, C. J., delivering the opinion of the Court, says:
“ In construing so important an instrument as a constitution, especially those parts which affect the vital principle of a republican government, the elective franchise, or the manner of exercising it, we are not, on the one hand, to indulge ingenious speculations, which may lead us wide from the true sense and spirit of the instrument; nor on the other, to apply to it such narrow and constrained views as may exclude the real object and intent of those who framed it. * * * If an enlarged sense of any particular form of expression should be necessary to accomplish so great an object as the convenient exercise of the fundamental privilege or right, that of election, such sense must be attributed.”
Cooley says:
“Narrow and technical reasoning is misplaced when it is brought to bear upon an instrument framed by the people themselves, for themselves, and designed as a chart upon which every man, learned and unlearned, may be able to trace the leading principles of government.” Cooley’s Const. Lim., 59.
Under the Constitution of Delaware the right of suffrage, although its exercise depends upon compliance with certain constitutional prerequisites or conditions, is vested in the male citizen of the State, of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, except idiots, insane persons, paupers and persons convicted of a crime deemed by law felony; and this right can be divested only through forfeiture as a punishment for crime judicially ascertained.
The class thus vested with this right is distinctly defined by the Constitution and no power exists in the legislature either to increase or diminish this class.
The right can be lost only through forfeiture as a punishment for crime.
For the specification in the Constitution of the means by which the right may be forfeited is a constitutional prohibition against the forfeiture of the right by any other means.
McCafferty v. Guyer, 59 Pa. St., 109; Page v. Allen, 58 Pa. St., 338, 346; Barker v. The People, 20 Johns, 457.
“When the Constitution defines the circumstances under which a right may be exercised or a penalty imposed, the specification is an implied prohibition against legislative interference, to add to the condition, or to extend the penalty to other cases.”
Cooley on Const. Lim., 64.
Failure to pay a poll tax is no crime under the laws of Delaware, and thus furnishes no ground for the forfeiture of that right.
And before the right of suffrage can be lost even as a punishment for crime, the alleged crime must be judicially ascertained.
McCafferty v. Guyer, 59 Pa. St., 109.
The Constitution prescribes certain prerequisites or conditions for the exercise of the right of suffrage.
But these provisions prescribe prerequisites or conditions, not for the existence of the right of suffrage, but merely for its exercise.
The right of suffrage does not grow out of residence in the State for a year, or in the county for a month, or the payment of a county tax.
It grows out of the fact that the person possessing it is a male citizen of the State of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, and is included in the class of individuals whom the people of the State have by their organic law recognized as the depositaries of sovereignty.
Residence in the State for a year and- in the connty for a month and the payment of a county tax are but prerequisites or conditions upon which the right of suffrage already vested can be exercised.
That the framers of the Constitution did not deem the payment of a county tax essential to the existence of the right of suffrage is evident from the fact that they provided that every “ male citizen of the age of twenty-one years and under the age of twenty-two years, having resided as aforesaid, shall be entitled to vote without payment of any tax.”
Nothing could more clearly show that under the Constitution the payment of a county tax was a prerequisite or condition, not for the existence, but merely for the exercise of the right of suffrage.
The legitimate function of taxation is merely to provide means to defray the expenses of the machinery of government.
It is both unphiosophical and unreasonable to suppose that the framers of the Constitution regarded the right of self-government as having its origin in the payment of a tax, which is but an incident to self-government.
They did not intend to subordinate the principal to its incident.
Furthermore, it is material in this connection to note the phraseology of the Constitution in providing that the citizen who has complied with the constitutional prerequisites or conditions shall not acquire the right of suffrage, but “ enjoy the right of an elector.”
Every male citizen of the State of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, whose right of suffrage has not been forfeited as a punishment for crime, has a constitutional right to comply with the constitutional prerequisites or conditions for his exercise of the ■ right of suffrage.
When a constitution clearly defines the class of citizens whom it considers fit to be the depositaries of the sovereignty of the State, and prescribes certain prerequisites or conditions on their part for the exercise of that sovereignty, a psychological phenomenon would indeed be presented if the framers of that constitution did not intend that all citizens embraced in that class should have the right to comply with such prerequisites or conditions.
And if such be the intention of the Constitution, it inevitably follows that the legislature—the mere creature and servant of the Constitution—cannot directly or indirectly defeat or thwart that intention.
The Constitution requires that the voter must have resided in the State for a year, presumably in order that he may have become familiar with its institutions, and thereby the more intelligently and properly exercise the right of suffrage.
No act of the legislature can deprive him of the right to reside in the State for that year.
The Constitution requires that the voter musLhave resided in the county where he offers to vote for a month, presumably for the purpose of guarding against frauds upon the elective franchise.
No act of the legislature can deprive him of the right to reside in the county for that month.
The Constitution requires that the voter of- the age of twenty-two years or upwards must have paid a county tax within two years before the election, presumably from the consideration that justice requires that those who exercise the right of suffrage should bear their just share of the expenses of government.
It is submitted that no act of the legislature can deprive him of the right to pay a county tax within those two years.
It may possibly be suggested that the Constitution contains no provision relating to taxation, and therefore that the legislature not only has unrestrained power to tax, but also the unqualified right to determine whether or not during any given period to exercise the power of taxation • and that, if the taxing authorities have the right under legislative enactments to so determine, and shall determine that no tax shall be laid during a given period, the idea of any right on the part of the citizen to comply with the constitutional prerequisite or condition calling for the payment of a tax during that period, is thereby excluded.
But to any suggestion there are several distinct and sufficient answers,
1. The Constitution does not contemplate and intend that the legislature shall posses the unqualified right of determining either directly or indirectly whether during any given period any tax shall be laid; but, on the contrary, contemplates and intends that no such right shall exist in the taxing authorities.
It provides for the periodical election of a governor and general assembly of the State, and recognizes periodical elections of sheriffs and coroners, and intends that the general assembly and these officers shall be elected.
It must be held to intend that the State, for the security and protection of which it was adopted, shall not lapse into confusion and anarchy.
Yet it requires the payment of a county tax by voters of the age of twenty-two years or upwards as a prerequisite or condition for their exercise of the right of election.
Therefore, by necessary implication, it intends that the taxing authorities shall afford an opportunity to male citizens of the age of twenty-two years or upwards, to pay a county tax, and that such citizens shall have the right to comply with the constitutional prerequisite or condition.
2. To hold that the legislature either directly or through the taxing authorities acting under legislative enactments has the unqualified right during such period as to it or them shall seem proper to render it impossible for male citizens of the age of twenty-two years or upwards to comply with the constitutional prerequisite or condition by preventing them from paying a county tax, would be to decide that the legislature is constitutionally authorized and empowered to extinguish the right of self-government in this State.
For an unqualified power to render impossible compliance with a prerequisite or condition for the exercise of a right is virtually and in law an unqualified power to destroy the right itself.
3. Any suggestion of right in the legislature, either directly or .through the taxing authorities, to determine whether or not during any given period the power of county taxation shall be exercised has no logical or necessary relation to the question under discussion.
That question is whether or not the taxing authorities acting under legislative enactments have a constitutional right in laying a comity tax to exclude any male citizen of the age of twenty-two years or upwards from all opportunity of paying his share, and thereby to prevent him from complying with the constitutional prerequisite or condition for the exercise of hjs right of suffrage.
And so far as the Constitution is concerned, it matters not whether the action of the authorities assumes the form, on the one hand, of the prevention of a citizen from being assessed for a tax, or, on the other, of his prevention from paying a tax which has been assessed against him.
The Constitution regards substance, not form or shadow; and in either case the result is the same.
Clearly the legislature has no authority to authorize the taxing officials, while engaged in the exercise of the power of taxation, to exclude any male citizen of the age of twenty-two years or upwards from his right to be assessed and pay a tax, and thereby comply with the constitutional prerequisite or condition.
4. Both the Constitution and the history of the elective franchise in Delaware show that the framers of the Constitution did not intend that the legislature should have the power to exclude the voting class of citizens from exercising their right of suffrage by thus arbitrarily preventing them from complying with the constitutional prerequisite or condition of the payment of a tax.
(a) Section 3 of Article I of the Constitution declares that u all elections shall be free and equal.”
Here is a guaranty by the organic law that the class of citizens, in whom under the Constitution is vested the sovereignty of the State, shall have not only the right after complying with the constitutional prerequisites or conditions to equally enjoy the elective franchise, but also the right to freely comply with those prerequisites or conditions and exercise the elective franchise.
Any other interpretation of the guaranty would rob it- of its force and vitality, and substitute shadow for substance.
Patterson v. Barlow, 60 Pa. St., 54, 67.
(b) Section 2 of Article IV of the Constitution provides that e‘ electors shall in all cases, except treason, felony or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at elections and in going to and returning from them.”
This provision is a clear recognition by the Constitution that it is of concern to the State that electors shall freely exercise the right of suffrage.
Even in colonial times the same State policy was recognized in Delaware.
The General Assembly of the Three Lower Counties on Delaware in 1733 enacted that “ every person within this government, qualified to elect according to the directions of this act, refusing or neglecting (not being hindered by sickness or other unavoidable accident.) to attend at the election, and to give in his vote, and being' thereof legally convicted by the oath or affirmation of one credible witness, before the Justices at their next Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, to be held for the county to which he belongs, shall be fined the sum of twenty shillings, one half thereof to be paid to the treasurer for the use of the county, and the other half to any person who will sue for the same.”
While, this enactment may be regarded as extreme, it yet serves to disclose the same public policy recognized in the Constitution.
Precisely the same policy which demands the exercise of the right of suffrage by those citizens of the voting class who have complied with the constitutional prerequisites or conditions, equally demands that other citizens of the voting class who are ready and willing to comply with those prerequisites or conditions should have the right so to do.'
(c) To hold that any male citizen of the age of twenty-two years or upwords belonging to the voting class has not a right to pay a county tax in order to enjoy the right of an elector, would be to decide that Delaware has not advanced but has retrograded in the cause of free government.
In the Charter of Privileges, granted in 1701 by William Penn to the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and the Three Lower Counties on Delaware, it was provided that “ for the well governing of this province and territories, there shall be an assembly yearly chosen, by the freemen thereof, to consist of four persons out of each county,” &c., and that “ the qualifications of electors and elected * * * shall be and remain as by a law of this government made at New Castle in the year One Thousand' Seven Hundred, entitled, An Act to ascertain the number of 'Members of Assembly, and to regulate the elections.”
1 Del. Laws, App. 39, 40.
The Act of 1700 above referred to contained the following provision relating to the qualification of electors and elected:
“No inhabitant of this Province and Territories shall have right of electing or being elected as aforesaid unless he or they be natural or native born subject or subjects of England or be naturalized in England or in this Province "and Territories and unless such person or persons as aforesaid be of the age of twenty-one years or upwards and be a freeholder or freeholders of this Province or Territories and have fifty acres of land or more well seated and twelve acres thereof or more cleared and improved or be otherwise worth fifty pounds lawful money of this government clear estate and have been resident therein for the space of two years before such election.”
By “ an Act for regulating elections, and ascertaining the number of the Members of the Assembly,” passed in or about 1732, - substantially the same qualifications for the exercise of the right of suffrage are required, forty pounds lawful money being substituted in lieu of fifty pounds as a qualification.
1 Del. Laws, 146.
Thus the law remained until the adoption of the Constitution of 1776, when it was incorporated in the organic law of the State.
1 Del. Laws, App. 83.
By the Constitution of 1792 it was provided that “every white freeman of the age of twenty-one years, h aving resided in the State two years next before the election, and within that time paid a state or county tax, which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election, shall enjoy the right of an elector; and the sons of persons so qualified, shall between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-two years, be entitled to vote, although they shall not have paid taxes.”
It thus appears that prior to the Constitution of 1792, while a property qualification was in Delaware necessary for an elector, the payment of tax was never required as a prerequisite or condition for the exercise of the right of suffrage.
Before the adoption of that Constitution the right of citizens to qualify themselves to exercise the right of self-government was beyond the reach of legislative prevention or denial.
No legislative enactment could prevent them from or hinder them in acquiring property real or personal of a sufficient amount or value to meet the requirement for the enjoyment of an elector.
[n them was vested the right, indefeasible except for crime, to qualify themselves to vote.
It is beyond belief that, when the Constitution of 1792 substituted the payment of a tax in lieu of the ownership of property as a prerequisite or condition for the enjoyment of the elective franchise, it intended anything else than that the citizen should have a right to pay that tax, and exercise the right of suffrage.
And the same statement a fortiori applies to the Constitution now in force.
5. In the exercise of the taxing power the legislature is necessarily clothed with large discretion, and may either directly or through the proper county authorities determine the times and manner in which county taxes shall be assessed and collected.
But such determination of times and manner must be in subordination and not repugnant to constitutional guaranties.
If the legislature could and should validly enact that county taxes should be assessed, instead of annually, only biennially in the year of the general election within five months next before such election, and that the authority of the collector to receive taxes should expire on. the last day of October preceding such election, at which time all uncollected taxes should be deemed extinguished, every male citizen of the State of the age of twenty-two years or upwards, belonging to the voting class would be absolutely disfranchised.
For no such citizen could comply with the constitutional prerequisite or condition of the payment of a county tax within two years next before the election, which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election.
But no Court would hesitate, for an instant to brush aside such an enactment as violative of the constitutional right of citizens to qualify themselves to vote. ■
The fact that citizens of the age of twenty-one years and under the age of twenty-two years are not required to pay a county tax as a prerequisite or condition for their enjoyment of the right of electors, is potent evidence that the Constitution intends that citizens of the age of twenty-two years or upwards shall have the right to pay such tax for their qualification to vote.
It clearly shows that the framers of the Constitution intended that citizens belonging to the voting class should not be disfranchised by the non-payment of a county tax, which they have no opportunity under the law to pay.
It is a necessary implication that, in prescribing the payment of a county tax as a prerequisite or condition for the exercise of the elective franchise by citizens of the age of twenty-two years or upwards, the Constitution intended they should have the right to pay such tax.
For precisely the same policy which dispenses with the pay-merit of a tax in the one case, requires that there should be a right to pay it in the other.
It is, therefore, submitted that every male citizen of the State of the age of twenty-two years or upwards who belongs to the voting class and whose right of suffrage has not been forfeited for crime has a constitutional right to be assessed for a county tax and to qualify himself to vote by the payment of that tax within two years next before the election.
Every male citizen of the State of the age of twenty-two years or upwards, who is not excepted by the Constitution from the voting class, and who has not been convicted of felony, has a constitutional right to be assessed for a county tax and to qualify himself to enjoy the right of an elector by the payment of that tax in each of the two years next preceding the election.
The constitutional prerequisite or condition—“ having within two years next before the election, paid a county tax, which shall have been asseessed at least six months before the election,”—contemplates and intends that the citizen shall have the right to pay a county tax in each or either of these two years.
This constitutional provision must be read in the light furnished by the system of taxation in existence in Delaware at the time of its adoption.
That system, like the system now in force, was not one of biennial, but of annual taxation.
It provided that “ The Levy Court and Court of Appeal shall every year calculate and settle * * * the amount of the county tax, &e.”
Digest of Del. Laws, 1829, 377.
It further provided that “ every freeman above the age of twenty-one years shall be rated, in addition to his assessment, a personal tax for a capital not exceeding one thousand pounds nor less than fifty pounds, at the discretion of the assessors.” Id., p. 390.
The Constitution, adopted while this system was in force, clearly intended at least that so long as county taxes continued to be annually assessed all male citizens of the age of twenty-two years or upwards belonging to the voting class should have the right to comply with the constitutional prerequisite or condition by the payment of a tax in either or each of the two years.
To read the provision differently would do violence to that principle of liberal interpretation which peculiarly applies to constitutsonal guaranties relating to the fundamental right of suffrage.
But if there were room for any doubt upon this point, any such doubt would be immediately removed by glancing at the history of the adoption of the provision in question.
And for this purpose the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1831 may properly be referred to.
Cooley on Const. Lim., 66; State v. Kennon, 7 Ohio St., 547, 563; The People v. Purdy, 2 Hill, 31, 37; Clark v. The People, 26 Wend., 599, 602; McCafferty v. Guyer, 59 Pa. St., 109, 112.
The committee on the right of suffrage had made á report in favor of excluding all citizens from voting who had not paid a tax within one year next before the election.
“ Mr. Clayton said there was another part of the report which he thought required amendment. The report excludes all from voting who have not paid a tax within one year. • He presumed this was through inadvertence, and that the committee had, following the train of ideas produced by changing the term of residence from two years to one, through inadvertence changed the time within which a tax must be paid to qualify a man to vote, from two years to one. It might be that very good men might neglect to pay their tax within a year, and thus lose their votes. It might be that a collector might be so forgetful of his duty, as not to give them an opportunity to pay their tax in time to vote. He therefore proposed to strike out‘one year’ and insert ‘ two years/
Judge Hall thought no possible inconvenience could result from requiring each man to pay his tax in the year in which it was due. As the term of residence had been changed from two years to one, it was a continuation of the idea to require the payment of the tax within a year preceding an election.
Mr. Clayton replied that many citizens depended on paying their tax on the day of the election. On that day the collector might be absent, from sickness, from accident, or perhaps from design, and thereby drive hundreds from the polls. It would be well, if we could, to make each man pay his taxes within the year • but we might thereby drive away many valuable voters.
The amendment proposed by Mr. Clayton was adopted.”
Harker’s Debates, 24.
Thus the history of the adoption of the constitutional prerequisites or condition' in question shows beyond all controversy that the Constitution intends that the male citizen of the age of twenty-two years or upwards shall have the right to pay a county tax at any time within two years next before the election and thereby qualify himself to vote.
Yet the legislature of 1873 requires that the poll taxable who is returned as a delinquent for non-payment of his tax for the first year shall be dropped from the assessment list, thereby preventing him not only from paying a tax for the second year, but also from paying his tax for the first year.
The legislature, while it may provide reasonable regulations for the exercise of the elective franchise, designed to secure and facilitate the fair, free, orderly and convenient conduct of elections has no constitutional authority to deny, abridge, impair or restrain the right of suffrage, or add to or take from the constitutional qualifications of electors, or unnecessarily impede, embarrass or render more difficult the enjoyment of the right.
Cooley on Const. Lim., 616; Capen v. Foster, 12 Pick., 485-489; Page v. Allen, 58 Pa. St., 338, 346, 351; McCafferty v. Guyer, 59, Pa. St., 109; Patterson v. Barlow, 60 Pa. St., 54, 67, 71.
In Daggett v. Hudson, 43 Ohio St., 548, a registration act which allowed only seven specified days within the year in which to regiter and correct registration of voters was held unconstitutional and void. The Court say, p. 561:
“ The legislature has full power to regulate the right to vote, but no constitutional power to restrain or abridge the right, or unnecessarily to impede its free exercise. Under the pretence oí regulation the right of suffrage must be left untrammeled by any provision or even rules of evidence that may injuriously or necessarily impair it, and so the citizen cannot forfeit the right except by his own neglect, or by such peculiar accidents as are not attributable to the law itself. So upon this part of the case our conclusion is that the legislature may enact registration laws, but they must be for the regulation only, and must not unnecessarily abridge or impair the right of suffrage secured to every elector by the Constitution.”
In State v. Fitzgerald, 32 N. W. Rep., 788, the Supreme Court of Minnesota held an act unconstitutional, which assumed to establish an election district, but failed to provide the means by which an election could be held.
In Attorney General v. Detroit, 24 N. W. Rep., 887, the Supreme Court of Michigan held that an act providing for a board of registration was unconstutional as attempting to add to the constitutional conditions upon which the right of suffrage could be exercised.
In Dells v. Kennedy, 6 N. W. Rep., 246, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin say:
“ The elector possessing the qualifications prescribed by the Constitution is invested with the constitutional right to vote at any election in this State. These qualifications are explicit, exclusive, and unqualified by any exceptions, provisos or conditions, and the Constitution, either directly or by implication, confers no authority upon the legislature to change, impair, add to or abridge them in any respect. * * * Ho registry law can be sustained which prescribes qualifications of an elector, additional to those named in the Constitution, and a registry law can be sustained only, if at all, as providing a reasonable mode or method by which the constitutional qualifications of an elector may be ascertained and determined, or as regulating reasonably the exercise of the constitutional right to vote at an election. If the mode or method, or regulations, prescribed by law for such purpose, and to such end, deprive a fully qualified elector of his righ to vote at any election, without his fault and against his will, and require of him what is impracticable or impossible, and make his right to vote depend upon a condition which he is unable to perform, they are as destructive of his constitutional right, and make the law itself as void, as if it directly and arbitrarily disfranchised him without any pretended cause or reason, or required of an elector qualifications additional to those named in the Constitution. It would be attempting to do indirectly what no one would claim could be done directly.”
In Rison et al. v. Farr, 24 Ark., 161, 171, the Court say:
“ The right of those having the constitutional qualifications to vote, is founded in the fundamental law of the land, and cannot be legislated away. The right of suffrage in this State, if not an inherent, is at least a constitutional right, and whoever possesses the required qualification, cannot be restrained from the exercise of that right except by the alteration of the Constitution; and any law infringing upon that right as vested by the Constitution is null and void. * * * If the legislature cannot, by direct legislation, prohibit those who possess the constitutional qualification to vote, from exercising the elective franchise, that end cannot be accomplished by indirect legislation. The legislature cannot, under color of regulating the manner of holding elections, which to some extent that body has a right to do, impose such restrictions as will have the effect to take away the right to vote as secured by the Constitution.”
In People v. Canady, 73 N. C., 198, it was held that, the Constitution requires thirty days residence in the county as a condition for exercising the right of suffrage, an act requiring ninety days residence therein was unconstitutional.
In Quinn v. The State, 35 Ind., 485, the Court say:
“We are of the opinion that these enactments are unconstitutional and void. The Constitution requires only that the person shall be a resident of the township or precinct, in order to entitle him to vote, if he possesses the other qualifications, and the legislature cannot say that this residence shall be, or shall have been, for any specific length of time. If it can say that it shall require twenty days to constitute a residence, why may it not say that it, shall require ninety, or three hundred and sixty-five days ? ”
Cooley says: “All regulations of the elective franchise, however, must be reasonable, uniform, and impartial; they must not have for their purpose directly or indirectly to deny or abridge the constitutional right of citizens to vote, or unnecessarily to impede its exercise; if they do, they must be declared void.”
Cooley’s Const. Lim., 602.
In State v. Constantine, 42 Ohio St., 437, it was held that a statute authorizing the election of four members of a police board, but denying to an elector the right to vote for more than two mem bers, was unconstitutional; the elector being by the Constitution “ entitled to vote at all elections.”
The principle of the foregoing cases is supported and illustrated by abundant authority.
State v. Conner, 34 N. W. Rep., 499; State v. Tuttle, 9 N. W., 791; Kineen v. Wells, 11 N. E. Rep., 916; State v. Baker, 38 Wis., 71; Monroe v. Collins, 17 Ohio St., 666; State v. Williams, 5 Wis., 308; People v. Maynard, 15 Mich., 463; Paine on Elections, Section 340; McCrary on Elections, Sections 13, 17.
The legislature having no constitutional power to deny, abridge or embarrass the exercise of the elective franchise by any direct legislation, such denial, abridgment or embarrassment cannot constitutionally be effected through indirect legislation, although directly relating to other subjects than the right of suffrage.
In Cummings v. The State of Missouri, 4 Wall., 277, it was held that certain provisions of the Constitution of Missouri requiring priests and clergymen, in order to preach and teach, to take and subscribe an oath that they had not committed certain penal acts, although in form imposing merely a condition upon their right to exercise their profession, were in substance a bill of attainder, and as such forbidden by the Constitution of the United States and void.
In Woodbridge v. City of Detroit, 8 Mich, 274, 306, Christiancy, J., says:
Where indirect means are employed to accomplish what is forbidden to be done directly, the law rejects these indirect means, as of no validity, and treats the case as if the same end were obtained by direct means.”
In Parrott’s Chinese Case,6 Sawyer, 349, 382, 383, Sawyer, J., says:
“ The end sought to be attained is unlawful. It is in direct violation of our treaty stipulations and the Constitution of the United States. The end being unlawful and repugnant to the supreme law of the land, it is equally unlawful, and equally in violation of the constitution and treaty stipulations, to use any means, however proper, or within the power of the State for lawful purposes, for the attainment of that unlawful end, or accomplishment of that unlawful purpose. It cannot be otherwise than unlawful to use any means whatever to accomplish an unlawful purpose. * * * And whatever form the law may take on, or in whatever language be couched, the court will strip off its disguise, and judge of the purpose from the manifest intent as indicated by the effect.”
In Davies v. McKeeby, 5 Nev. 369, the Court say :
“ The form of the law by which an individual is deprived of a constitutional right is immaterial. The test of its constitutionality is whether it operates to deprive any person of a right guaranteed or given to him by the Constitution. If it does, it is a nullity— whatever may be its form. Surely a law which deprives a person of a right by requiring him to take an oath which he cannot take is no less objectionable than one depriving him of such right in direct terms. To make the enjoyment of a right depend upon an impossible condition, or upon the doing of that which cannot legally be done, is equivalent to an absolute denial of the right under any condition. The effect, and not the language of the law in such case, must determine its constitutionality. It would not be doubted for a moment, that a law expressly denying the elective franchise to any person upon whom the Constitution confers it, would be unconstitutional. Why, then, is a law less objectionable which, although not expressly and directly, yet no less certainly denies the right?”
The provisions of the legislation of 1873 upon which the defendants rely add to the constitutional qualifications of electors, unnecessarily impede and embarrass the enjoyment of the right of suffrage, and abridge and impair that right, and are therefore unconstitutional.
Under the legislation of 1873 all delinquent poll taxables who are returned as such must be dropped from the assessment list.
The allowance to the collector of the amount of their taxes as delinquent extinguishes them.
Those who have failed to pay their poll tax and are returned as delinquent have therefore no opportunity thereafter of paying the tax for the preceding year.
They have no opportunity of paying a poll tax for the year in which they are returned as delinquent, because their names are dropped from the assessment list.
Thus in order that the poll taxable may comply with the constitutional prerequisite or condition by'the payment of a county tax within two years next before the election, it is necessary that he shall pay a tax by the first Tuesday in March next before the election, viz : at least eight months before the election.
His constitutional right to qualify himself to vote by the payment of a tax in each or either. of the two years is abridged, in that, instead of having two years in which to comply with the prerequisite or condition, he is restrained to sixteen months.
Again, the Constitution in requiring that the elector shall pay county tax, “ which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election,” clearly intends that the assessment of that tax may be made in the year of the election.
Yet the legislature has undertaken to prevent the poll taxable from" exercising the right of an elector unless he has paid a tax assessed twenty months before the election.
In order to justify the legislation of 1873 the Constitution would have to be so altered as to read thus: “ having within two years next before the election paid a county tax, which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election, provided he paid a county tax at least eight months before the election, which shall have been assessed at least twenty months before the election
But such an alteration would be by way of addition to the constitutional qualifications of electors, and such additions are beyond the power of the legislature.
The same principle which would permit the legislature to require the payment of a tax eight months before the election,- would allow it to require such payment one year and eleven months before the election.
The legislature of 1873 was neither intended or calculated to secure and facilitate the fair, free, orderly and convenient conduct of elections.
On the contrary, it seeks to abridge, impair and embarrass the constitutional right of citizens to enjoy the elective franchise, and strikes at the most vital principle of a republican form of government, the sovereignty of the people.
Tested by reason and authority that legislation must be declared unconstitutional.
The provisions of the legislation of 1873 upon which the defendants rely are violative of the constitutional guaranty that “ all elections shall be free and equal,” and are therefore unconstitutional.
Under the legislation of 1873 elections are not equal.
The Constitution, regarding substance rather than form, in providing that elections shall be free and equal demands that all citizens belonging to the class in which the whole sovereignty of the State practically resides, shall not only have the right to vote after complying with the constitutional prerequisites or conditions, but also the right to comply with those prerequisites or conditions.
But the legislation in question, far from observing the constitutional rule of equality, is designed and operates to produce the most glaring inequality.
It discriminates between those citizens of the voting class who are property owners, and those citizens of that class who do not own property.
While it strikes from the assessment list pole taxables who are returned as delinquent, it retains on that list property taxables who are in default.
It discriminates even between poll taxables who have failed to pay their tax; striking from the assessment list those whom the collector chooses to return as delinquent, and retaining on that list those whom the collector prefers not to so return.
It makes sport of the principles of free-government, ruthlessly destroying both the freedom and equality of elections, and thereby grossly violating the organic law of the State.
It is therefore submitted that the provisions of the legislation of 1873 upon which the defendants rely, whether considered as a fiscal regulation of the State, or as a regulation of the elective franchise or its exercise, are unconstitutional. 7
e e The provisions of the legislation of 1873 upon which the defendant’s rely being unconstitutional, the defendant’s are personally liable in this action.
An unconstitutional statute is a nullity and cannot afford protection to any person acting under it.
Cooley on Const. Lim., 188; Brown v. Hummel, 6 Pa. St., 86; Taylor v. Porter, 4 Hill, 140; Kelly v. Bemis, 4 Gray, 83; Astrom v. Hammond, 3 McLean, 107; Woolsey v. Dodge, 6 McLean, 142, 146; Sumner v. Beeler, 50 Ind., 341; Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U. S., 425, 442.
The legislation in question being absolutely null and void, the defendants were bound under the laws of the State not to strike the name of the plaintiff from the assessment list, but, on the contrary, to retain his name upon that list and assess a county tax upon him for 1886.
This legal duty the defendants violated, thereby illegally and wrongfully denying to the plaintiff his right to qualify himself to enjoy the right of an elector, and as a necessary result illegally and wrongfully prevented the plaintiff from exercising his right as an elector.
This denial of right to the plaintiff worked a legal injury to him, for which damages are recoverable in this action.
For the wrongful deprivation of the citizen of the right to vote, or prevention of his exercise of that right, is an actionable injury.
Ashby v. White, 2 Ld. Raymond, 938, 953, 958.
In Lincoln v. Hapgood et al., 11 Mass., 350, it was held that an action would lie for the refusal to receive the vote of a qualified ■elector.
The function which the defendants were legally bound to discharge, in continuing the name of the plaintiff on the assessment list and assessing a county tax against him, was in no sense discretionary, judicial or quasi judicial; but was purely ministerial.
Persons exercising ministerial functions are liable for injuries done by them under an unconstitutional statute; nor does the fact that they are public officers shield them from liability.
Astrom v. Hammond, 3 McLean, 107.
And whenever a ministerial officer is charged by law with the performance of a certain duty, though due primarily to the public, and through his malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance with respect to that duty, an injury results to an individual who has a special interest in the proper performance of such duty, the officer is liable in damages.
Henly v. The Mayor of Lyme, 5 Bing., 91; Hover v. Barkhoof, 44 N. Y., 113; Clark v. Miller, 54 N. Y., 528.
In Clark v. Miller, supra, the Court say :
“ A ministerial officer charged by statute with an absolute and certain duty, in the performance of which an individual has a special interest, is liable to an action if he refuses and omits to perform it.”
Therefore, whether the provisions of the legislation of 1873 upon which ths defendants rely be considered unconstitutional as a regulation of taxation, or as a regulation of the elective franchise or its exercise, or unconstitutional upon both grounds, the defendants are personally liable to the plaintiff in this action.
John H. Rodney and George Gray, for defendants :
The enactment of the provision for dropping the names of delinquents from the assessment list, and of excluding names so dropped for the period of twelve months as contained in Section. 1,'of Chapter 372 of Delaware Laws, is valid and constitutional.
Synopsis of Constitutional and Statutory Provisions.
In order to clearly present the question at issue before the Court, it is thought advisable to submit the various steps and processes to-be taken before any one can be qualified as an elector. The Constitution requires two distinct qualifications •, (1) residence in the State for one year and in the County for one month before the election, and (2), payment, within two years next before the election, of a county tax which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election. With the first of‘these qualifications we have nothing to do in this case. In order to acquire the second qualification, the elector must comply with the Statutory provisions respecting the assessment and collection of taxes.
The law provides that there shall be every four years, a general assessment of persons and property, and every year a special assessment of the persons of those liable, who have arrived at the age of twenty-one years since the preceding assessment, or who have come to reside in the hundred, or who have been before omitted.
Rev. Code, Ch. 11, Secs. 2 and 3.
Following this, by Chapter 371, Vol. 14, Laws of Del., the assessor is required to post the assessment list so made by him in at least five public places of the hundred, and at the same time, places, and in the same manner, he shall give notice that he will attend at the place of holding the general election in the said hundred on a day named in the said notice between certain hours therein named to correct any errors in his assessment, and for the purpose of assessing any person who may have been omitted.
It then becomes his duty to add to the assessment ■ the names of all persons who shall appear before him and prove their right t'b be assessed, with a penalty for the non-performance of this duty.
By Section 17 of Chapter 10, such assessor shall return his assessment to the Levy Court on the first Tuesday of February.
By Sec. 8 of Chapter 371 aforesaid, it is made unlawful for the Levy Court, or any member thereof, to take from the assess-
ment returned to said Levy Court by any assessor the name of any person appearing thereon.
By the same section the Levy Court are authorized to add to the assessment list the name of any person making personal application and proving his right to be so assessed, subject to this provision for the addition of names omitted; and the list so returned to the Levy Court is final.
The Levy Court then proceeds to ascertain the amount which is necessary to be raised by taxation for the ensuing year and apportion and lay the taxes for the same by assessment in the several hundreds. Rev. Code, Ch. 8, Sec. 18.
The Levy Court is required to meet on the first Tuesday in March for business connected with the assessment; Ch. 8, Sec. 11, and the assessment is required to be entirely completed by the last day of March, and no additions can be made to it thereafter.
After completing the assessment and laying the taxes the Levy Court is required to issue a duplicate to the collector on or before the first Tuesday in April. Sec. 18.
The duties of the collector are, within thirty days after he shall have received his duplicate, to give public notice by advertisement in the manner prescribed by law, stating his place of residence or of business and his readiness to receive the taxes; and, also, in the month of January in each year, again to give notice as aforesaid. It is the duty of the collector then to return to the Levy Court as delinquents the names of all persons who did not appear and pay their taxes.
Rev. Code, Ch. 8, Sec. 21.
On the collector making an affidavit that he has given the notices as aforesaid, it becomes the duty of the Levy Court to allow the said collector, as delinquencies, the taxes uncollected by him, and the law provides that the names of such delinquents shall be dropped from the assessment list by the Levy Court, and shall not be placed thereon again for a period of twelve months from and after the date of such allowance,. It is this provision which is • called in question in this suit.
From this brief synopsis it appears, and must be borne in mind in this suit, that the system of laws which provides for the assessment and collection of taxes, has a two-fold aspect.
Its primary purpose is the raising of revenue, but the payment of a tax being a constitutional pre-requisite for voting, it is under these revenue laws that the right of voting is acquired.
It is with the latter function of this machinery that we have now specially to deal, but in determining the power of the Legislature over the whole subject it must not be overlooked that their passage is an exercise of that most unlimited of all the Sovereign powers of a State—the power of taxation.
A law will not be declared unconstitutional unless it appears to the Court to be so, clearly and beyond a reasonable doubt.
Judge Cooley well states the caution required in declaring laws unconstitutional when he says, “ The moment a court venture to substitute its own judgment for that of the Legislature, in any case where the constitution has vested the Legislature with power over the subject, that moment it enters upon a field where it is impossible to set limits to its authority, and where its discretion alone will measure the extent of its interference.”
“ The rule of law upon this subject appears to be, that, except where the constitution has imposed limits upon the legislative power it must be considered as practically absolute, whether it operate according to natural justice or not in any particular case. The courts are not the guardians of the rights of the people of the State, except as those rights are secured by some constitutional provision which comes within the judicial cognizance. The pro tection against unwise or oppressive legislation within constitutional bounds, is by an appeal to the justice and patriotism of the representatives of the people. If this fail, the people in their sovereign capacity can correct the evil; but courts cannot assume their rights. The judiciary can only arrest the execution of a statute when it conflicts with the constitution. It cannot run a race of opinions upon points of right, reason, and expediency with the law-making power.”
Cooley Const. Lim., 167 (2d Ed.); Eakin v. Raub, 12 S. & R., 330, 340; People v. Blodgett, 13 Mich., 127, 161; Sears v. Cottrell, 5 Mich., 250, 253; People v. Gallagher, 4 Mich., 243; Tyler v. People, 8 Mich., 319, 333.
Courts ought not to declare a law unconstitutional unless its repugnance to the constitution is direct and clear.
Bruce v. Schuyler, 4 Gilman, (Ills.) 221, 272; People v. Marshall, 1 Ib., 672; Lane v. Dorman, 3 Scam., 238, 240.
Presumption is in favor of constitutionalty. To authorize a court to declare otherwise, its repugnance to the Constitution must clearly appear.
Hawthorn v. People, 109 Ills., 302, 307; Foster v. Essex Bank, 16 Mass., 245, 269.
The question whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the constitution, is, at all times, a question of much delicacy, which subject seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative, in a doubtful case. * * * * But it is not a subject of implication and vague conjecture that the legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers, and its acts to be considered void. The opposition between the constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of" their incompatibility with each other.”
Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch., 87, 128; Ex parte McCollom, 1 Cow., 564; Clark v. The People, 26 Wend., 598 (1841 overruling case of People v. Ram., 23 Wend., 414,); Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 128; Cochran v. Van Sorley, 20 Wind., 382; People v. Morrell, 21 Wend., 584; Gibson v. Ogden, 9 Wheat, 188; 6 Cranch, 188; 1 Cowen, 564: Newell v. People, 3 Seld, 109.
While we consider that the provisions of the Constitution of the United States have no relation to this case, yet anticipating any claim that the provision of law in question is obnoxious to one of the recent amendments, it may be proper to refer to the construction of those amendments by the Supreme Court of the United States. It will be convenient to dispose of this subject before considering the relation of- the act in question, to the Constitution of the State.
That Court has settled the principle that the Constitution of the United States has no relation to the right of voting in the States, except to secure that right against any denial or abridgement on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.
The line of decisions on the construction of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments is clearly to the effect that the former has no relation to the right of suffrage, and the latter only that above indicated.
The first elaborate examination of the Fourteenth Amendment was in the Slaughter House cases, and it was then determined that citizenship of the State and of the United States are different, and depend on different characteristics and circumstances in the individual.
It was also expressly held that the privileges and immunities secured by the Fourteenth Amendment, are those belonging to citizenship of the United States, and not to that of the State.
Slaughter House cases, 16 Wall., 86, 74, 76.
Soon after the same Court decided that suffrage was not conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment; that the United States has no voters of its own creation, and that suffrage is not a privilege or immunity of citizenship of the United States, either originally or under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall., 162, 170, 173.
The same principle had been determined by Mr. Justice Blatchford, before the last decision, in the Circuit Court of the United States at New York.
U. S. v. Anthony, 11 Blatchf., 200.
The words privileges and immunities had been long before accurately defined and their scope determined by Mr. Justice Washington, and his definition was approved and adopted by the Supreme Court in The Slaughter House cases, 16 Wall, at page 75, and the Court refers to its prior approval of the same in Ward v. The State of Maryland, 4 Wall, 430. The Court then clearly expressed the opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment did not add anything to the words “ privileges and immunities ” as contained in the original constitution. Judge Washington’s characterization of these terms is in. Corfield v. Coryell 4 Wash. C. C., 380.
In a later one of the same line of cases it was held that the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the U. S., does not confer the right of suffrage on any one. Its sole effect is to prevent the States from giving preference to one citizen over another on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
United States v. Reese, 92 U. S., 214, 217.
The right of suffrage is not a necessary attribute of national citizenship; but only exemption from discrimination in the exercise of that right on account of race, etc., is an attribute of national citizenship.
U. S. Cruikshank, 92 U. S., 542, 556.
The right to vote comes from the States and has not been granted or secured by the Constitution of U. S. Ib., 556.
In Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S., 651, the syllabus states that U. S. v. Reese is qualified and explained. The qualification is only that in case of States from whose Constitutions the word “ white ” had not been stricken out, the Fifteenth Amendment does in fact confer the right of suffrage on negroes by striking out the word “ white.”
This qualification does not affect this case.
Constitutional provisions, respecting the qualification of voters, are usually brief and free from detail. It follows then of necessity that the details must be provided for by law, and the courts have accorded to the Legislatures a large degree of discretion with respect to such legislation. Indeed it is absolutely necessary to do so.
The general principle is that the Legislature has power to make laws for the regulation of elections and that by so doing it does not add any new qualification for voting or abridge the constitutional rights of the elector.
“ While it is true that the .Legislature cannot add to the constitutional qualifications of electors, yet it must devolve upon that body to establish such regulations as will enable all persons entitled to the privilege to exercise it freely and securely, and exclude all who are not entitled from improper participation therein.”5
Cooley on Const. Lim., 6 1, (2d Ed.)
Among other matters which are treated as within the constitutional power to regulate elections, the most important is to ascertain who are the legal voters. This is usually done by what are called registration laws, which probably afford the best analogy for the purposes of this case.
A law providing for the registration of electors is a constitutional exercise of legislative power. Such a provision “ deprives no one of his right, but is only reasonable regulation under which the right may be exercised.”
Cooley Const. Lim., 602; Capen v. Foster, 12 Pick, 485; People v. Kopplekom, 16 Mich., 343.
A law providing for the close of the registration of electors on a certain day before the election and depriving unregistered electors of their vote is constitutional.
Capen v. Foster, 12 Pick, 485; Daggett v. Hudson, 43 Ohio St., 548; People v. Hoffman, 116 Ills., 587.
Under our existing laws every person having the right, has an equal opportunity to qualify himself to vote. If he fail to do so, it is by his own neglect or omission, and his disfranchisement, if it occur, is voluntary.
State v. Hilmantel, 21 Wis., 574, 578; State v. Baker, 38 Wis., 71, 85, 87.
But apart from these considerations, we now approach the real questions, upon which this case hinges and must be decided, and they arise under the general powers of the Legislature over the matter of taxation. It must be conceded, that the Act of Assembly in question, does not contravene in terms, any express, or explicit provision of the Constitution. It remains therefore to be considered, whether there is to be derived from the Constitution any implied restriction, upon the otherwise absolute power of the Legislature, over the matter of taxation. To examine this intelligently let us see where the right to assess and collect taxes is reposed.
The right to levy and collect taxes is in the Legislature
All sovereign power is inherent in the people, acting through the Legislature, except, when expressly restricted by the Constitution ; the Constitution of a State, being a limitation and not a grant of power.
Cooley on Const. Lim., 87.
In this respect differing from the Federal Constitution, which confers legislative powers, only to the extent express grants contained therein.
v
The power of taxation is an incident of sovereignty, and is co-extensive with that of which it is an incident.
Cooley on Const. Lim., 479; Cooley on Taxation, 3 and 4.
In its very nature it acknowledges no limit, and the only security against abuse must be found in the responsibility of the Legislature which imposes the tax, to the constituency who are to pay it. The judicial cannot prescribe to the Legislative department of the government, limitations upon the exercise of its acknowledged power.
Cooley on Taxation, 3 and 4; Veazie Bank v. 8 Wall, 508, 533; Carroll v. Perry, 4 McLean, 25; Weston v. Charleston, 2 Peters, 449; Lane Co. v. Oregon, 7 Wall, 71, 77; McCullough v. Maryland, 4 Wheat, 316, 428.
Therefore the Court cannot by any construction place a limit upon it.
In the exercise of this sovereign power the legislature can prescribe what class of person and property shall be taxed, and what property and what class of persons shall be exempt.
Brewer Brick Co. v. Inhabitants of Brewer, 62 Maine, 62.
There is nothing in the Constitution of the State of Delaware, which interferes with or limits the exercise of this sovereign right in the legislative body. What then is the true extent and scope of the provision in question ? The Constitution makes no provision for the assessment or collection of a tax but merely restricts the right to vote such persons as shall have paid certain tax; the amount and character of this tax, the persons affected, and all the details being left to the unrestricted action, and descretion of the Legislature.
“ With respect to the mode of exercising the taxing power the Legislature is invested with entire discretion.”
Hilliard Taxation, 3; Hill v. Higdon, 5 Ohio (St.), 243, 245.
The imposition, modification and removal of taxes, and the exemption of property therefrom, is an ordinary exercise of the power of State Sovereignty.
Gilman v. Sheboygan, 2 Black., 510.
The taxing power of a State is one of its attributes of Sovereignty.
Union Pac. R. R. Co. v. Panistou., 18 Wall., 5; Erie R. R. Co. v. Penn., 21 Wall., 492.
So long as a State by its laws prescribing the mode and subject of taxation, does not violate any express provision of the Constitution, the Courts can afford no relief however unjust, oppressive or onerous those laws may be.
The mode of enforcing payment of taxes is wholly within legislative control.
Witherspoon v. Duncan, 4 Wall, 210.
The tax which the plaintiff alleges he was prevented from paying, by reason of his non-assessment, was confessedly a “ poll ” or personal tax.
The whole system of taxation being for revenue, the assessment is a list of taxables, a listing of those liable to pay tax, and in no sense a registration of voters. That this is so, is shown by the fact, that unnaturalized persons, non-residents, corporations and women are so assessed or listed, and called upon to pay taxes.
The assessment of a poll tax is rarely resorted to in the system of taxation, and in this State is peculiarly the creation of the legislature, entirely independent of the Constitution or any of its provisions. In no sense can the provision of the Constitution be considered mandatory that such a tax (the one in question in this suit), should be laid or collected in order to perfect, and protect the right of suffrage.
This being so, the plaintiff will be compelled to take the anomalous position, that although this unusual tax exists only by legislative action, it would be unconstitutional for that body to repeal the law providing for its payment, because then all but property holders would be unable to meet the constitutional requirement to exercise the right of suffrage. But this tax, depending on legislative action alone for its existence, can undoubtedly be extinguished by it, showing, therefore, that the payment of such a tax is not secured as a constitutional right,—although if in existence and paid would bring the elector within the constitutional limitation, as indeed would the payment or hny other county tax imposed by the same authority.
There can therefore be no implication of a prohibition in the Constitution upon the legislature’s repealing a tax law, which it had full power to enact or to refrain from enacting.
A poll tax is not the only county tax, the payment of which may qualify a voter. The payment, directly or indirectly of a tax assessed on real estate or certain personal property is a qualification under the Constitution.
State v. Livingstone, 1 Houst. Crime Cases, 109.
The proposition to which we come therefore is, That the Constitution, in making the payment of á' county tax one of the qualifications of a voter has referred to a condition collateral to, and "aliunde” of any constitutional provisions and one which must be controlled and can be changed or modified by the General Assembly as the sole depositary of all legislative power inherent in a sovereign people not denied or restricted by the Constitution of this State or of the United States. Assuming therefore, that the matter of the assessment and collection of taxes is a matter of revenue— that there is no express constitutional provision for the payment of a poll tax, that the legislature having created that tax, has power to abolish it, and that the utmost duty of the legislature is to provide a county tax, and that the power of that body in the matter of taxation is supreme, it follows that any such regulation as is provided in the Act of Assembly in question although incidentally it may have the effect complained of, in this suit, is no violation of the fundamental law, and certainly not so palpable and flagnant as would warrant the Courts in pronouncing it unconstitutional.
Sharpless v. Phila., 9 Harris, 147; Huber v. Riley, 3 P. F. Smith, 315.
The Legislature through its agents the Levy Courts in each county, have exclusive and sole power over the tax assessments, and can prescribe what rules shall govern in their preparation.
Having the power to repeal the law relating to poll assessments in toto a fortiori, it is a proper exercise of the legislative function, to provide for the purging of the tax lists, of all that class of delinquents, who after full and public notice have failed to pay their taxes. The provisions of the law in question are for the removal from the lists in question, of the whole of a certain class, whose right to pay such tax is not secured by any Constitutional provision, and upon which the right of suffrage does not solely or necessarily depend.
As illustrative of (what is indeed undisputed) the right of the Legislature as expressed through the Levy Court, it may be mentioned, that this latter body has (by Act of Assembly) exercised unquestioned the right upon the return of a tax payer as delinquent, to direct his tax to be extinguished, although this action has the effect of preventing him from paying the tax for that year and thus reducing the Constitutional limitation.
Having this power over the collection or payment of a tax, a fortiori they would have it over the assessment.
The Constitutional qualification of an elector was not intended and did not in its terms contemplate an unchanged or unchangeable condition of laws, nor by any construction express or implied, does it impose a limit upon the essential powers of future legislatures to assess and levy taxes as exigencies might require, nor to regulate the amount and character and mode of collection of the same.
Patterson v. Barlow, 60 Penna. St., 81.
The legislature therefore having created a “ poll ” or personal tax, (for by no construction can it be derived from any Constitutional provision) must have the undoubted right to repeal it, (as we have already said) in toto; and having the legal right of regulating and prescribing rules for the assessment of taxables, it follows that the legislative action in reference to delinquent tax payers is within the purview of the sovereign power of that body, and infringes upon no Constitutional right of such delinquent.
The motives of the law making power cannot be brought in question nor the policy of the act impugned. It may be corrupt > in fact work injustice, and yet is not to be condemned on these grounds.
The Courts are judges and not law makers. The doubt as to the intention of the legislators, does not regard, nor can it be referred to the motives prompting the passage of an act • for over that the judges have no right of control.
Sedwick Const. v. State Law, 194; Ex parte Newman, 9 Cal., 512; Bradshaw v. City of Omaha, 1 Neb., 29.
No inquiry upon the subject of the motives of the legislature can be allowed.
Horpending v. Haight, 39 Cal., 202; see also Wright v. Defrees, 8 Ind., 208; McCullough v. State, 11 Ind., 431; State v. Hayes, 49 Mo., 604.
The motive and intent are distinct. The intention is to be gathered from the words of the Act, and may properly be the subject of construction by the Court, the motive of the lawmakers is not a proper subject of inquiry.
While it is considered, by the defendants that the act in question is a .proper and just exercise of the legislative discretion, in regard to the arrangement and procedure, for the assessment and collection oí taxes, and that no criticism can be made upon it, upon the ground of its unreasonableness, or that it works any injustice, the above principles and authorities are presented to the Court, to sustain the position that the motives influencing its passage (should there be an attempt to impugn them) are not a proper subject of consideration.
In conclusion, the defendants recapitulate the following points s
1. That the Court will with great caution and reluctance decide that an Act of the Legislature is void, only doing so, when it is in flagrant and palpable repugnance to the fundamental law,— the motives of the Legislature not to be drawn in question.
2. That there is no provision of the Constitution requiring the levy and collection of the tax in question in this suit.
3. That the reference in the Constitution to the payment of a county tax, under certain conditions as a qualification to vote, is to a matter which has been left in the absence of Constitutional inhibition or restriction, under the control of the Legislature, wherein all legislative power, not inhibited or restricted by the Constitution is reposed. So that in requiring the payment of a county tax, as one qualification of a voter the Constitution prescribes a condition that is collateral to and outside of an provision of itself, but is dependant for its existence and regulation, on the sovereign will of the people, acting through their Legislature, as ‘established in their scheme of government.
4. That a poll tax is not the only tax the payment of which, will, under the Constitution, constitute a qualification for voting, and that such a tax as well as the whole matter of revenue and taxation, depends for its existence, upon the legislative will, and a fortiori is its modification, and regulation, as to assessment and collection within legislative control.
But aside from the question of the competence of the legislature, to regulate absolutely and exclusively the assessment and collection of county taxes, we maintain, that if this law is looked at merely as a law to regulate the right of suffrage, in other words, as a registration law, that it is not obnoxious, to fair and just criticism, because it is reasonable in its requirements, deprives no one of the right of qualifying as a voter, who uses ordinary diligence, and takes care that he is on the assessment lists, the ensuing year by paying the tax legality assessed for the preceding year.
It is proper before closing this brief to call attention to the liability of the defendants in this ease in any view of the law. If the law were unconstitutional the injury complained of was not worked by dropping the plaintiff from the assessment list but by the refusal of the assessor to assess him, for a period twelve months thereafter.
Acting under the existing laws the defendants are protected.
McCrary on Elections, Chap. 8, Sec. 254; People v. Solomon, Am. Law Reg. vol. 9, 232; State v. Carroll, Amer. Law Reg. vol. 12 N. S., 165 and 179.

Opinion:
Comegys, C. J.
The questions presented in the arguments of this case by the counsel of the plaintiff are many; but they are all within the scope of .those made by the case stated, and questions reserved thereon, which, in effect, are whether the legislation of this state in 1873, set forth in counsel's briefs, is a valid exercise of legislative power; and, if not, whether the defendants are liable to the plaintiff in damages in his action.
In order to properly comprehend and decide the first question, it is necessary—at least I think it-will be useful—to go back into the political history of the state, or rather of the territory of which it is composed, and ascertain what, down to the time of the Revolutionary War, was the law with regard to the suffrage, or right to vote for public officers at elections. Before doing this, it will be well that a proper understanding should obtain in regard to the participation of men in the government they are under; that is, the power of deciding by ballot, at elections held for that purpose, who shall administer public affairs.
It is not directly denied on behalf of the plaintiff—in fact, it is conceded—that the power to use the ballot is one of those derived from government, or the political society in which the elector resides. At the same time the contention here is the outgrowth of the idea that the primary object of government is universality of electorate. It is, of course, entirely consistent with the hopes of most men, members of a political body, (as one of the states of the Union,) that every person recognized by society as acting sui juris should participate in the ballot; and all such, it is believed, are accorded that privilege. But in this state, as no doubt in most of the others, it is conferred only upon the condition of contributing to the support of the government. The paramount duty of organized society is not to make the use of the ballot " free " to every such person, but to provide the means for its own sustenance, which is done by taxation, and, after that, but altogether subordinate to it, however, to secure to the payer of taxes, not the mere taxable, the privilege, or " right," as it is generally called, to vote at elections. There is no natural right to vote. It is one conferred by a community at large upon certain of its members, which implies the power and authority to withhold it from others. The whole idea of our original government—that before 1776—was that only those who paid taxes should vote; not that all should vote, but only those who helped to support the government. It was a privilege conferred upon such, and such only. They were the freemen, out of whose body, in the public aggregate mass, the public officers, particularly the legislative council and assembly, were to be chosen. Those who had real estate were rated upon it, and such as had not were assessed upon the poll.
It is a great mistake to suppose that the first law for a poll-tax, as alleged by plaintiff's counsel in argument, was the act of 1796. The fact is that before William Penn came to America, to take possession of the territory granted him by Charles II, (March, 1681, ) he promulgated a " frame " of government for his province of Pennsylvania, and a Code called " Laws Agreed upon in England," which latter defines those who are to be considered as freemen to use the ballot. In the language of the " frame," by the second clause or paragraph, the freemen were to choose the provincial council, and, by the fourteenth, the members of the general assembly. There is, however, no definition therein of a "freeman." The date of this is the 25th of April, (then the second month,) 1682. On the following 5th of May, the latter rescript was passed, which in the second clause defines the term " freeman," used in the former and in the first clause of the latter, in the following words: " Second. That every inhabitant of said province [Pennsylvania] that is or shall be a purchaser of one hundred acres of land, or upwards, his heirs and assigns, and every person who shall have paid his passage, and taken up one hundred acres of land at one penny an acre, and have cultivated ten acres thereof, and every person that hath been a servant or bondsman, and is free by his service, • that shall have taken up fifty acres of land, and cultivated twenty thereof, and every inhabitant, artificer, or other resident in the said province that pays scot and lot to the government, shall be deemed and accounted a freeman of said province; and every such person shall be, and may be, capable of electing, or being elected, representatives of the people in provincial council or general assembly in the said province." These documents are to be found in a compilation of the laws established by the Duke of York, and by the Penn government, also, made by authority of the state of Pennsylvania, labeled "Duke of York's Book of Laws, 1676-1682" and the "Charter and Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania, 1683-1700," pp. 93-101.
In the " act of union " by which the counties which now form this state were, by the desire of the inhabitants, annexed by Penn (who had become enfeoffed of them by deed of the Duke of York, who succeeded his brother, Charles II., as James II.) to his province of Pennsylvania, those inhabitants were guaranteed to be governed by the same laws, and to enjoy the same privileges, in all respects, as the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, etc. Freemen?in the counties were then the same as freemen in the province; that is, those who paid "scot and lot," or "customary contribution laid upon all subjects according to their ability," as it is defined by the lexicographer, Bailey. The date is 7th of December, 1682. Id. 104. On the same date as the "act of union," Penn, "with the advice and consent of the deputies of the freemen of this province and counties aforesaid," (the Delaware counties,) enacted what is called " The Great Laws, or Body of Laws," by chapter 58 of which it is provided as follows: " And, that elections may not be corruptly managed, upon which the present and future good of the province so much depends, be it," etc., " that all elections of members or representatives of the people and freemen of the province of Pennsylvania, and territories annexed, [now Delaware,] to serve in the assembly thereof, shall be free and voluntary; and that the elector that shall receive any reward or gift, in meat, drink, moneys, or otherwise, shall forfeit his right to elect; and such person as shall give, promise, or bestow any such reward, as aforesaid, to be elected, shall forfeit his election, and be thereby incapable to serve as aforesaid; and the assembly shall be sole judges of the regularity or irregularity of the election of the members thereof."
In chapter 127 following, it is enacted in these words: " And, to the end that due provisions be made to defray the requisite charges incident to the public business and service of this province, and territories thereof, be it enacted," etc., " that the charges of each county shall be made up in open court by the respective magistrates thereof; and" that every such court shall have, and' hereby hath, power to assess and lay such taxes upon the county as shall defray the same, so that it be equal, and according to proportion ; and that the one-half of the said tax to be paid shall be raised upon land, the other half by the poll, on the male from sixteen to sixty years of age, and that all such persons who hold land within the province and territories thereof, and do not reside therein, and so incapable of giving that attendance, and yielding that service, to the public, as those that live therein, shall pay to all public taxes for such lands so held by them one-half more than residents pay for the same portion."
On the 20th of October, 1691, William and Mary took the .government of the province and territories (the Delaware counties) into their own hands. In this state, on dispossession of Penn, they appointed, as captain general and governor, Benjamin Fletcher; one of the first acts of whose administration was to procure the passage of a law for granting a penny in the pound to the sovereigns, towards the support of the government under him. The fourth clause of the act provides that the tax shall be a charge upon real and personal estate for a year only, and then declares that " all freemen within this province and territories as have been out of their servitude by the space of six months, and shall not be otherwise rated by this act, nor worth one hundred pounds, shall pay unto the use aforesaid the sum of six shillings per head, with a proviso that our chief proprietary and his late deputies shall not be assessed or otherwise chargeable by virtue of this act." Id. 221, 222. By section 17 of this act, (the law about counties levies,) it is provided that the grand jury shall present any sum necessary to be raised, either for the paying of any public debt, or other occasion for the public utility of the county, "and the justices [of the quarter sessions] to make the rate or assessment, which shall be raised in the same manner as moneys are by the sessions agreed to be raised for the support of the government, viz., after the rate of one penny per pound [upon property] and six shillings upon the poll." Id. 233.
William Penn was restored to the government of his province and territories by William and Mary in the sixth year of their reign, (21st October, 1693,) and appointed his nephew, William Markham, his deputy, who, with the advice and consent of the council and representatives of the province and territories, passed an act or body of laws, the first clause of which, after the preamble defines the term " freemen," (that is, those who were to vote for council and assemblymen,) as follows: " That no inhabitant of this province or territories shall have right of electing or being elected as aforesaid unless they be free denizens of this government, and are of the age of twenty-one years of age or upwards, and have fifty acres of land, ten acres whereof are seated and cleared, or be otherwise worth fifty pounds lawful money of this government, clear estate, and have resident within this government for the space of two years next before such election." Id., 247. By this law, Penn made the electoral qualification one entirely of property. In the second chapter of the enactment is il An act for raising the rate of one penny per pound, and six shillings per head, upon such as are not otherwise rated thereby, to be employed by the government for the time being as is hereinafter limited and appointed •" the enacting section of which fixes the rate for housekeepers, and then provides that all males within this province and territories of this act who have been free of their servitude by the space of six months, and shall be above the age of 21 years, being worth £72 and upwards, shall be assessed and pay after the rate of 1 penny per pound clear estate as aforesaid, and that such of the said males only as be not worth £72 shall pay six shillings per head. In 1704 the separation between the territories and the province took place; and thereafter they had separate legislative bodies, though under the lieutenant governors of the Penn proprietorship of the province as long as the rule of the family lasted, that is, down to the Revolutionary War. The first declaration of those entitled to vote, of electing and being elected, after the separation was made by an act of the 7th George II., (1736,) passed by the then Lieut. Gov. Patrick Gordon, " by and with the advice and consent of the representatives of the freemen of the said counties, [New Castle, Kent and Sussex on Delaware,] in general assembly met," etc., which in its second section confines the suffrage to property holders by this language : " Provided, always, that no inhabitants of this government shall have right of electing or being elected as aforesaid unless he or they be natural born subjects of Great Britain, or be naturalized in England, or in this government, or in the province of Pennsylvania, and unless such person or persons be of the age of twenty-two years or upwards, and be a freeholder or freeholders in this government, and have fifty acres of land or more well settled, and twelve acres thereof cleared and improved, or be otherwise worth forty pounds lawful money of this government clear estate, and have been resident therein for the space of two years before such election." 1 Laws Del., 146.
There is no other act relating to the qualification of elector in the colonial period. In the year 1797 an act of the general assembly of thé state was passed which established a different rule from that then prevailing for assessing the polls of freemen, that is, the personal rate; This fixed it at not more than £1,000 of the then currency, nor less than £200. This is the act erroneously supposed to have first created the poll-tax. Hall's Dig.1 Laws Del., 390-In the revision of 1852 the phraseology is changed, the highest rate of poll tax being $2,700, the equivalent of £1,000, and the lowest $140, the virtual equivalent of £50, Delaware currency. Such is the law of the state at this day.
From this review of the law which has always prevailed here in regard to the qualification of voters, two things seem to be clear, —that is, that the right to vote was conditional altogether upon the payment of taxes previously assessed, ("scot and lot," as tersely expressed in the homely but perfectly well understood language of the ancient enactments,) and that the poll-tax was adopted 100 years, at least, before 1797, for those who had no property. Under the old system, there could be no privilege of voting by any without payment of tax, without each man paying his part towards the support of government. The theory then was that no man should enjoy the privilege of voting for public officers unless he paid for it, by adding the requirement of tax upon him to the general concession for the maintenance of the state. The privilege was conditional upon his doing that in some form, voluntary or by compulsion. " Pay your tax, and you may vote," said the law; which shows that it was only upon compliance with a condition that a citizen could cast a ballot. All arguments, therefore, which are the offspring of any notion of inalienable right, sacred right, indefeasible right, have no place in this discussion. The right to vote was, in the old time as now, conditional upon several things,— citizenship, majority of age, payment of county rates and levies. It was and is but a privilege or right sub conditions; and those who fixed the terms of it were strangers to any other idea than quid pro quo,—" scot and lot." Such .modern ideas as manhood suffrage, (if by that be meant a suffrage because of full age,) ballot for all, and slavery without the ballot, were properly left to be evolved out of the consciousness of visionary theorists, with aspirations for a state of society dreamt of only by those who would substitute our poor humanity for the great creator.
The law of 7th George II., (1736,) continued, as that fixing the qualification of voters, until the constitution of the state, of 1792, was made; for that of the 20th September, 1776, (1 Laws Del. App., 83,) expressly provides that " the right of suffrage in the election of members of both houses shall remain as exercised by law at present;" etc. Article 5. In the former the right is thus defined. Article 4, § 1: " All elections of governor, senators and representatives shall be by ballot; and, in such elections, every white freeman of the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the state two years next before the election, and within that time paid a state or county tax, which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election, shall enjoy the right of an elector, and the sons of persons so qualified shall, between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-two years, be entitled to vote, although they shall not have paid taxes." Const, 1792, (1 Laws Del., 38.) The latter clause of the article was a new feature introduced into the canon of electoral qualification. In the year 1831 a state convention was held to revise the constitution of 1792. By it, elections were made biennial instead of annual, and the electoral qualification was modified by this language: " In such elections every free white male citizen of the age of twenty-two years or upwards, having resided in the state one year next before the election, and the last month thereof in the county where he offers to vote, and having, within two years next before the election, paid a county tax which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election, shall enjoy the right of an elector; and every free white male citizen of the age of twenty-one years and under the age of twenty-two years, having resided as aforesaid, shall be entitled to vote without payment of any tax': provided, that no idiot or insane person or pauper, or person convicted of a crime deemed by law a felony, shall enjoy the right of an elector," etc. Rev. Code 1874, pp. xxxii., xxxiii. This change extended the time for payment of tax to two years before the election, to conform it to the biennial system of elections; allowing all men between 21 and 22, having the residential qualification, to vote without payment of tax, confined the tax to county rates, and excluded the insane, paupers, and persons convicted of felony. This constitutional qualification continues in force to this day,—nearly 60 years from the time of its enactment. Under the old system of taxation provided in the sixth section of the " act concerning the levy court," etc., (Hall's Dig., 576,) the general, rate of persons and personal property continued for 6, and the assessment of real estate for 12 years. Afterwards the former was reduced to 4 years, (Rev. Code 1874, p. 85,) and by a subsequent amendment, that of real estate, which before had. been first 12 and then 8 years, was reduced to 4, also, (13 Laws, c. 294;) so that the assessments of persons and personal property and real estate, are now uniform as to duration.
By the law in force prior to the year 1843, upon the allowance by the levy court to a collector, in its settlement with him at th e March session, of a party upon his duplicate as a delinquent, the practice was to drop his name from the assessment list; and it remained off until the next general assessment of persons and personal property, when it was restored. This was in virtue of the rule that a condition once shown to exist is presumed to continue until the contrary be established. If the statute had not provided that there should be a general assessment of persons and personal property, (quoad ante,) the name would have remained off the list until the delinquent had himself applied to have it restored, which would not, of course, have been- done without some proof that the condition no longer existed; and, in accordance with this presumption, a collector was allowed two years to collect the taxes on his duplicate, (copy of the assessment list, with calculation of tax,) and no more. Then the tax was treated as extinguished entirely. Hall, Dig., 380. But it was discovered that collectors, in their zeal to promote the interest of the political party to which they owed their appointment, were in the habit, after the expiry of the two years, of allowing the taxes more than two years old of delinquents on their own sides, or on any other side, provided they would vote the ticket of the collector's party, to be paid, with a view of qualifying them to vote. As the collector's receipt was evidence of right to vote, there was no gainsaying it, without resort to the records of the levy court, which was impracticable. To prevent this fraud upon the election law, which contemplated, not the payment of taxes allowed as delinquent, and thus extinguished in fact, but payment of existing rates, the legislature, at the session of 1843, passed an act entitled " An act to amend the election laws of the State of Delaware," in the following words, (Act 9th, vol. 545:) " Whereas, it is highly important to preserve the elections in their purity, and to secure the confidence of the people in the integrity of those who conduct them, therefore, Sec. 2. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that, for the purpose of preventing frauds by the pretended receipt of old taxes, and by the antedating of receipts for tax, that no collector in this state shall collect any tax upon his duplicate after two years from the date of his waraant,. but that' after the lapse of two years from such date every such tax shall be extinguished, and no collector shall have power to give a receipt therefor. And it is hereby further enacted and declared, that every tax which shall have been returned and regularly allowed by the levy court as delinquent shall be, and the same is, utterly extinguished, and no collector, or other person in his name, shall have power to collect the same, or give a receipt therefor, and any receipt given for such tax shall be void; and if any collector shall receive any such tax, or give a receipt therefor, contrary to the provisions of this section, or shall fraudulently antedate or post-date any tax receipt, or shall use any other fraud in giving such receipt, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof by indictment, shall forfeit and pay to the state a fine of one hundred dollars, and shall also forfeit and pay to any person who will sue for and recover the same the further sum of one hundred dollars, with costs of suit. The levy court shall examine and settle the delinquent lists of each collector at its meeting in March every year, and make allowance of delinquents. Upon the allowance of any delinquency, the name of such delinquent shall be struck from the assessment list, and also from the collector's duplicate, and shall not be again restored until the delinquent is again lawfully assessed. Sec. 3. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the assessors for each hundred in this state, in the year eighteen hundred and forty-four, and in every year thereafter, shall make and complete the assessment for their respective hundreds by the fifteenth day of January, and shall, on or "before the twenty-third day of said month, publish, by posting in at least five of the most public places in such hundred, a list of the names of the persons assessed, arranged in alphabetical order, setting down separately the amounts assessed as real, personal, and capitation, or poll, tax, and carrying out the aggregate amount so assessed against each name, and shall at the same time, and at the same places, and in the same manner, give notice that they will attend at the place of holding the general election in such hundred on the last Saturday in said month, from the hour of ten o'clock a. m. until the hour of five o'clock p. m", for the purpose of correcting any errors which may then be shown to him by any resident of such hundred in his assessment, and for the purpose of assessing any such resident as he may have omitted. And additions,to, and corrections of, the said assessment lists, may also be made by the levy court and court of appeal in session at any stated or regularly adjourned session of the said court before the first day of April in any year. Ho assessment shall be made after the last day of March, nor shall any alteration of the assessments be made after that time, except in the lawful allowance of delinquencies. If any assessor, collector, clerk of the peace, or other person, shall fraudulently add to, or take from, the said assessments, as finally settled by the levy court at its last session in March, such person shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof by indictment, shall forfeit and pay to the state a fine of five hundred dollars. "
The preambles to the first and second sections show the motive and purpose of the legislature; the latter being that above ascribed to it. As corroborative of the allegation above made, that the payment of existing rates by a party offering to vote was contemplated, it is only necessary to refer back to the statute already cited from Hall's Dig., 573, where, near the close of the fourth section, will be found this language in relation to the returns of the assessors of the assessments, correction of them by the court, etc.: " And, in the year in which a general rate of persons and valuation of per sonal property only shall be returned, the list [assessment list] shall contain the names, in alphabetical order, of all the persons upon the assessment list of the hundred whose personal property shall be valued, or personal rate imposed; and such list shall specify the personal rate, and the number of slaves, and their valuation, and the valuation of the personal property, and the total amount of the rate and valuation, and in all other years [i. e., years other than those of general assessment of persons and personal property, then six years apart] the list shall contain only additions or alterations that shall have been made to or of the assessment list of the hundred," etc. By the sixth section of the same act it is provided " that the assessor of each hundred shall annually rate the persons of those liable to such rate, who have arrived to the age of twenty-one years since the making of the assessment of the preceding year, or who shall come to reside in the county, or who shall before have been omitted, and personal property acquired by bequest," etc. Here there is no provision for the restoration of delinquents to the assessment list. Having been dropped from the general list by the uniform usage of the levy court, by force of the presumption quoted, they were not to be again rated until a new general assessment was made. The legality of the practice was unquestioned. The objection to one offering to vote, that he was not on the " levy list " as it was called in common speech, was fatal to his application, unless he could show, before the constitution of 1831, the payment of a state or county tax within a year which had been assessed six months before the election at which he offered to vote, or, since that time, the payment within two years of a county tax assessed six months also before the election. The purpose of the act of 1843 was to expressly require what had been always theretofore held to be the law with respect to delinquents, with that, in addition, of preventing the pretended receipt of old taxes, etc. The theory had always been, without dispute, to that time, by the men of any party, that delinquency was exclusion from the assessment until another general assessment of persons and personal property was made, when the law required that they should be put on the list again.
The act of 1843 stood unchallenged upon the statute-book until the year 1847, when a supplement to it was passed, the second section of which provides as follow: " That it shall be the duty of each of the assessors of this state, in the annual assessments for their respective hundreds, according to the law of this state, to assess all such persons as may have been returned and allowed as delinquents at any session of the levy court preceding the period fixed by the act to which this is a supplement, for the completion of his assessment: provided, such persons reside at the time in the hundred for which he is assessor. And any resolution or order of the levy court, in either of the counties of this state, adverse to the provisions of this act, be, and the same is hereby, declared null and void; and any practice authorizing the said assessors to omit the assessment of such delinquents until the period of the assessment of persons and personal property next following the time when such persons shall have been allowed as delinquents be, and the same is hereby, directed to be discontinued." Volume 10, p. 171. Though not doing so in terms, this act virtually repealed that portion of the original act of 1843 which provided differently with respect to delinquents; but there is no suggestion or hint in it that the repealed feature of the latter act was in any sense hostile to the constitutional provisions concerning the privilege of suffrage. It therefore should be treated rather in the light of a revenue provision. At the session of 1851 an act was passed entitled " An act to extend the rights and privileges of poor white taxables within the state." It is in the lollowing words, (Act 10, vol. 518:) " Whereas, the present law of this state, requiring the names of delinquent taxables to be stricken from the assessment lists, does, in substance, treat poverty as a crime amounting to disfranchisement ; and whereas, it may, and frequently does, happen that, from sickness or othermisfortune, poor persons become temporarily unableto pay thepublie taxes assessed against them, who are nevertheless good and worthy citizens, and willing at all times, when able, to pay the public charges against them, and that the inability to pay in anypartidular year is no proof that such inability will exist the succeedingyear; therefore: Section 1. Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the state of Delaware, in general assembly met, that from and .after the passage of this act the allowances of delinquent lists in the several counties of this state shall be deemed, taken, and held to have no other design or effect than the crediting of the accounts of the several collectors for the time being with the several amounts by them respectively returned as the assessments against said delinquent taxables, and that, after being so allowed and credited as aforesaid, the same shall all be again placed on the duplicates of the collectors of the several counties for the succeeding year, except such as are returned as being dead or removed from the state. Sec. 2. And be it further enacted that the act entitled ' A supplement to the act entitled " An act to amend the election laws of the state of Delaware," passed at Dover, Feb-, ruary 16, 1847, and so much of the second section of the act entitled ' An act to amend the election laws of this state/ passed at Dover, February 27, 1843, as relates to the striking the names of delinquent taxables from the assessment lists and the collectors' duplicates, be, and the same are hereby, repealed, made null and void." This act had its inspiration in the desire of the political party which at the preceding general election of representatives, etc., had attained the power through a split in the party dominant since 1828, to increase its voting strength; the delinquent taxables having been always chiefly of their politics. It was not the offspring of any sentiment that prior legislation with respect to delinquents was in derogation of the electoral right, but grew out of the natural wish to magnify the electorate so as to enable the party then in power to remain there. It is true, the preamble has language that would warrant a different view; but it is well known that it was used simply rhetorically, to promote the passage of the act. If any of the tax laws had been suspected even of infringing the constitutional right of suffrage, the party which passed the acts now under consideration would have brought them to the bar of judicial decision to be annulled; for their interest, for the reason above given, made them necessarily hostile to them. The law just quoted remained undisturbed' until the legislation of 1873, which gave rise to this controversy. That legislation has provoked much criticism and animadversion; yet it is not much more, so far as delinquent taxables are concerned, than a revival of the act- of 1843, prepared by the then attorney general of the state, the late Chief Justice Gilpin. From the known care and caution with which his legal action generally was characterized, it is fair to suppose that he gave to the preparation all the consideration and reflection the subject required. Although the fact would not of itself justify a positive conclusion as to the validity of the law; yet it is much, in passing upon it, constitutionally considered, to know that the then first law-officer of the state put it forth with the sanction of his professional rank. As the present assessment laws are part of the legislation of 1873, it will be well to take a view of the law as it was before that session. There being no other law for the registration of voters than the assessment laws, this is the more necessary; the real contention being that the system of law under which we live, with respect to the electoral right, is repugnant to the constitution of the state, or that of the United States.
I have already pointed out that in this state there are periodic general assessments of persons and personal property, as well as of real estate. Now they are, by modification of former law, to be made every four years; and now, as heretofore, annual assessments of persons and personal property, in addition to the general assessment, are to be made, for the purpose of including new-comers, persons who have arrived at age since the prior assessment, and personal property since acquired, and to correct omissions, etc. The " Act for the valuation of property " (Rev. Code, 84) provides for the periodic assessment of property and persons, but it was modified by chapter 394 of volume 13 so as to reduce the time for the duration of the assessment of real property to four years; thus securing a general assessment of all property once every four years. I have stated this before. There was also, by this act, a provision for annual assessments, as above. There was no change in these provisions made by the act of 9th of April, 1873, —part of the legislation under consideration but some new features were introduced for what would seem to be the purpose of securing to persons who ought to have the right to vote the means of perfecting that right, and to prevent others from voting who ought not to be allowed to do so. The first section prevents the assessors from placing upon the assessment list, in addition to the names of those assessed for poll-tax, (all male citizens entitled to vote,) the name of any one not the owner in his own right of taxable property within the assessor's limits, unless he be satisfied, from personal knowledge that he is of age, and a dona fide resident of the hundred or district, except as thereinafter in the act provided. The second section provides that, in 10 days after making his assessment,—which, by section 16 the chapter concerning assessors, (Rev. Code, 78,) he is to complete by the 1st day of January,—he is to post it, made alphabetically, in front of the most public places in his territory, and give notice in writing, either attached to it or otherwise, stating that he will attend at the place of holding the general election therein, on some day to be named in said notice, from 10 a. m. till 5 p. m., to correct errors, and assess any who may have been omitted; and shall also state in the notice that persons desiring to be assessed must apply in person at the time and place mentioned therein, and furnish proof of identity, age, and residence required by section 3 following. And it is provided in the same section that, if the assessor cannot complete the services on the day named, he may adjourn to the next or some subsequent day, not exceeding three days from that time, to be announced publicly to those present at the time of the adjournment. The third section not only makes it lawful but the duty of the assessor to place upon his assessment list the name of any person who may have been omitted, who shall appear before him at the time and place specified in the notices aforesaid, and prove his right to be assessed by the affidavit of some respectable freeholder of the county, according to the form of the affidavit given. The fourth section enacts a penalty against the assessor, of not less than $100, nor more than $500, to be recovered by indictment for the misdemeanor the offense is declared to be, of refusing or omitting to place the applicant making the aforesaid proof upon the assessment list, and also for placing on the list, knowingly, the name of any fictitious person, or person not at the time a resident of his territory. The fifth section provides that, in case the assessor is unable, from sickness or otherwise, to attend at the time and place stated in his notice, he shall appoint some other man for the purpose, and give notice thereof at in the second section is mentioned. The sixth section makes it unlawful for the levy court, or any member thereof, to take from the assessment list any names appearing thereon, or to add to any assessment returned by the assessor the name of any person, unless upon his personal application and proof so to be made, as aforesaid, before the assessor, of his right to be assessed. A violation of the above by a member of the court is made a misdemeanor, with penalty of a fine of from one to five hundred dollars on conviction. And, if the clerk of the peace (the clerk of the levy court) shall neglect to place upon the duplicate to be delivered by him to the collector any name on the assessor's list, he shall forfeit and pay to the person whose name is left off the sum of -$10. This is to punish him; for the party's right to vote depends upon his assessment) and not on the correcting of the duplicate. The seventh section makes the offense a misdemeanor, punishable by fine of from one to five hundred dollars, by any one who shall procure or cause to be placed upon the assessment list any person not entitled to be assessed, or any fictitious or fraudulent person. The eighth section makes it perjury to make a false affidavit under the act. The ninth section makes it unlawful for any assessor or the levy court to place upon the assessment list of the assessor's hundred the name of any person who was returned a delinquent the year preceding, until after the expiration of 12 months from the time of the allowance of the delinquency by the levy court. The tenth section makes it the duty of the clerk of the peace to deliver to the sheriff in the month of August, in the year of holding the general election, an alphabetical list for each of the hundreds of the county of the delinquent list made and returned by the collectors at the March session of the levy court.
By the tenth section of the chapter next succeeding, (chapter 12, of " Collectors,") each collector must, on the first Tuesday of March next succeeding the date of his warrant, render to the levy court a true account of all taxes it was his duty to collect, of all payments made, and of all delinquents; and by section 1 of chapter 372 of volume 14 of the Laws, (Rev. Code, 90,) it is made the collector's duty, within 30 days after he has received his duplicate, to give public notice by advertisements, posted in 10 or more of the most public places of his territory, stating his place of business or residence, and his readiness to receive taxes; and it is also made his duty, in the month of January in each year, again to give public notice, as aforesaid, of at least 10 days, said notice to state the times and places at which he will attend to receive unpaid taxes. It is then made the duty of the levy court, upon proof by the collector's affidavit filed in the office of the clerk of the peace, setting forth that he gave the notice required, and that, in accordance with the last required notice, he did attend at the time and place designated, and there remained for the space of 5 hours each day, for .the period of at least 3 days, for the purpose of collecting the taxes aforesaid, to allow him as delinquencies the uncollected taxes; and then declares that the names of the delinquents shall be dropped from the assessment list by the levy court, and not be placed thereon again for the period of 12 months from the date of the allowance. The section is made applicable to persons liable to pay poll-tax alone; for the reason that those owning real property can always be made to pay by sale of their property, taxes being a prior lien thereon. It is true there is the ultimate remedy by im prisonment of the body in the case of mere poll-tax men; but it is never resorted to, the cost to the county of confinement in jail for a week, even, more than exceeding the tax. The second section provides that the notice shall be a sufficient demand upon taxables for their taxes, and a performance of the duty to make demand. By the law before, (sections 13, 15, c. 12, Eev. Code, aforesaid,) collectors could only proceed to sell property or imprison the body after 10 days' demand, to be proved by his oath as competent evidence of that fact. By section 17, c. 10, Eev. Code, p. 81, every assessor is required to return his assessment—which by the sixteenth section he is required to complete by the 1st day of January—to the levy court on the first Tuesday of February, and to attend the court on that day, and on the first Tuesday of March, and on such other days as the court may require, under a penalty of $20 to be recovered by indictment. This is to enable the court to perform its duty, mentioned in sections 12 and 13 in the chapter next cited. By section 11, c. 8, Eev. Code, p. 62, the levy court is required to sit as a court of appeals on the first Tuesday of March of each year, and on such days and times thence next in said month ensuing as it shall be necessary to adjourn to, and examine the assessments returned by the assessors, and the corrections thereof and additions thereto that may have been made, and receive, hear, and determine appeals against the same. By the twelfth section the court have power, either upon their own examination or upon appeal, to make additions to and corrections of the assessment list; to call before them any person whose name ought to be on it, or who was omitted by the assessor, etc. By the fourteenth section, an assessment cannot be called in question anywhere than in the levy court; and the saíne, as it shall stand in that court, is conclusive. The fifteenth section provides that no assessment shall be made after the last day of March ; and the sixteenth section, that, if any person shall fraudulently add to or take from the assessments as finally settled by the levy court, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and fined $500. The twenty-first section enacts that, at the meeting in March in every year, the court shall settle the delinquent list of each collector, and make allowance of delinquents, and upon such allowance the collector is to be credited with the amount thereof. Then there is the provision for the reassessment of the delinquent, superseded by the legislation of 1873.
I think I have now given—in brief in most cases, but in some verbatim et literatim—the provisions of law now in force in relation to the assessment and collection of taxes, and the allowance of delinquents, and the requirement when this is to be done. It will now tie useful to compare the old with the present legislation, with a view of seeing what is the difference between them,—whether that difference does deprive the citizen of the right or privilege of suffrage; it being contended by the plaintiff's counsel, not only that the new legislation was designed to disfranchise a certain class of voters, but that such is the necessary effect. Leaving out of view the question of design, which has no place in this discussion, the point to be decided is, does the legislation of 1873 necessarily impair the voting right of the citizen ? It will be well, in this inquiry, to look at the state of things existing at the time it was passed, as contrasted with that it displaced.
Before emancipation of slaves, and the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, voting in Delaware was confined to white males of over 21 years, with the exceptions before given; and so steady and constant was our population everywhere, except in Wilmington, that such persons as were selected to be assessors were usually acquainted personally with nearly all the voting class. It was for this reason, no doubt, that the law made no requirement of notice by the assessors that they were about to proceed, or would proceed, to make the assessment. At the February session of the levy court, the assessments were returnable ; and, by the practice of the court and the law, they were liable to correction by the levy court, in order to perfect them. But the March term was an appeal term from assessments, at which any person aggrieved at not being assessed at all, or who, or whose property, was unfairly assessed, could appear before the court, and obtain redress. When the levy court had made an examination of the assessment list, and corrections in them, at the February term, it was the duty of the clerk of the peace, by the 20th of the month, to make copies of the hundred lists, and post them for public inspection, with notice of the holding the court of appeal. Section •27, c. 9, Rev. Code, (Hall's Dig., 375.) This publication was the first formal notice to the public of the assessments, and then they had been completed by the assessors. No further notice was given in relation to assessments. On or before the first Tuesday of April following, it was the duty of the court to issue to the collectors duplicates of the assessment lists, with the taxes assessed upon them, together with warrants for their collection; and it was that of the collector, before proceeding to collect his taxes by legal process, to make 10 days' previous demand for them. But other notice to the tax-payers there was none. Doubtless it happened, in many cases, that parties were returned delinquent who had never been called upon for their taxes at all; their only notice being that given by the clerk of the peace, as above required, in the publication of the assessment lists. I have already pointed out that, under the old system, prior to the act of 1843, when a person was returned a delinquent, his name was dropped from the assessment then existing, and have ascribed the practice to the maxim specified. Under it, therefore, if he was returned a delinquent, and allowed as such by the levy court at the March session next after the year when the assessment was returned, he was off during the residue of the duration of the assessment, (then six years,) and, after it was changed, then the residue of four years. But it was found that many names were restored in some way surreptitiously, which operated to allow the delinquent class, or such of them as the dominant party needed in their service, to vote when their ballots were in requisition, and escaped paying their taxes at other times; thus defeating the requirement of paying " scot and lot," or taxes whenever assesséd, as the distinction of a freeman. This law of 1843 broke up that fraud, or was intended to do so, and required, in terms, that the delinquent's name should not only be dropped, but that it should not go upon the list again until he was again lawfully assessed, which, by the restrictive effect of the provision in the old statute for annual assessments, could not be done until there was a general assessment of persons. In 1847 an act was passed, the second section requiring the reassessment of delinquents in the annual assessments. They then were made to stand upon the same footing as persons before omitted. The first section required the delinquent list to be returned by the collectors on the first day of the annual March term, and prohibited allowance of it by the levy court for five days after return, and secured the public right to inspect it, by indictment of the members of the levy court, or the clerk of the peace, as the case might be, refusing to allow such inspection upon application. Volume 10, p. 171. That act was repealed by that of 1851, before quoted, which provided that the effect of allowance of delinquency should only be to credit the collector with the tax, and required that the name of the delinquent should be again put upon the collector's duplicate. It also repealed expressly so much of the act of 1843 as required the dropping the name of a delinquent from the assessment list, though that was done by implication. The act of 1843, by the expression of purpose contained in the second section, shows a motive for passing the provision with respect to delinquent taxes, and to dropping delinquents from the tax-list. It did its work very effectively, so that taxes had to be paid. The condition upon which the elective franchise was to be enjoyed had to be performed, for the legal presumption prevailed.
In the political campaign of 1846 when the dominant party lost their candidate for governor, a fierce assault was made upon it, and chiefly because of the act of 1843, and the manner in which that law dealt with delinquents. The legislature, however, was not lost; and accordingly, at the session following the election, the act of 1847 was passed, which was repealed, as has been stated, by that of 1851, when the power of the party in the legislature passed into the hands of its opponent. The legislation upon the subject of delinquents was a game of politics, but no one doubted that it was one which might be lawfully played. It did not put it out of the power of any man, really or practically, to obtain and retain the right to vote, but only aimed at compelling him to perform the condition for its exercise as other people had to do who owned property,—pay the county taxes.
The party which passed the act of 1851 lost its ascendency in the legislature at the election of 1852, but retained its majority in the senate. Of course, there was no prospect of repealing that which had been so great a desideratum with it,—on whose side the great body of the delinquents was. At the election of 1854, a totally new party came into power, and by what was then a large majority. Both branches of the legislature were of its members, —the house entirely, and two-thirds of the senate. It was a very strong party, and had no need to concern itself with legislation about delinquents. A great mistake of legislation made at that session so shattered its ranks that the political power of the state passed away from it utterly, and the party itself practically disbanded. Such result restored to power the makers of the legislation of 1851, which, suiting the dominant party perfectly, remained in force until it was repealed by that of 1873. By the latter, the provision contained in the law of 1843 for dropping the name of a delinquent from the list, was re-enacted; and by the assessment act, (14 Laws Del., c. 371, Rev. Code, p. 82,) passed at the same session, (on the day preceding the delinquent act,) or 14 Laws Del., c. 372, Rev. Code, p. 90, assessors were forbidden to assess a delinquent " until after the expiration of twelve months " from the time allowance as delinquent was made by the levy court. Why was the act of 1843 practically revived, as to dropping delinquents from the assessment list ? That question has been answered before by what was said with respect to the necessity claimed for the legislation of the 9th of February, 1873. An immense number of voters, and many of them emigrants from the south, had been added, by the fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, to the political ranks of the state. Almost all of these new voters were obscure persons, without any means whatever of a tangible nature to pay their taxes; and it was soon developed that they would content themselves with paying in the year of voting, and not in an " off year," as it was called. They were not, the most of them, persons whom the stigma of delinquency prompted to the avoidance of it by paying every year. It was grossly unjust to those who had property of an assessable nature, and could not, if they desired, escape the payment of " scot and lot," and to others having none, but with manliness above taking advantage of a too liberal statute, and paying biennially, that this state of things should continue. Accordingly, the legislation of 1873, both for assessment of persons and the collection of taxes, and allowance of delinquents and disposition of them, was passed. I say accordingly, for its obvious import is as I have described it to be. If there was any other motive for adopting it than to secure the better payment of taxes, it does not appear on the face of it, nor are we warranted in inferring it. A court cannot look behind the plain features of an act oí assembly perfectly simple in itself to hunt for some secret purpose, unless Such necessarily exists, as shown by the operation of the act itself.
The plaintiff's counsel contend that the object of the legislation of 1873 was the disfranchisement of voters, and that its effect has been to deny the ballot to citizens who should exercise it. In order to make their point good, they have given the court an example to show how a voter is by the law deprived of his right to vote. But the example is impossible, except upon an assumption that the party having the right to vote is defeated, or deprived of it, in spite of his efforts to enjoy it. This is pure assumption; the fact being that the law cannot operate without the co-operation or consent of the complaining party. If he desire to vote at elections, he has nothing to do but see to it that his name is kept upon the assessment list, and it will be retained there; and he will have the right to vote because of that, according to the constitution, if he will keep up, like other people in like case, the payment of his tax. If he fail to pay within two years of the election he cannot vote, by the constitution, and ought not to vote. He who will not contribute his part to support the government that protects him ought not to be allowed, by the use of the ballot, to neutralize the vote of another, who does. And he who will not give himself the trouble to see that he is assessed sleeps upon his rights ; and for him the maxim, non dormientibus sed vigilantibus, leges subveniwit, has appropriate application.
Treating the suffrage as a valuable political right, to be exercised conscientiously and intelligently, and for the public, rather than the welfare of a party, it would have been much better for the state if that feature of the act of 1843 which provided for dropping from the assessment lists those returned delinquent had been re-enacted in the act of 1873; for it is not true that delinquency is the effect of poverty. There" are none so poor that they cannot pay their poll-taxes, which for them is " scot and lot;" less than two days' hire out of the wages of the common laborer being sufficient for that purpose. Labor everywhere, and always among us, is in demand. There is no hardship upon any in requiring him to pay his taxes, which in this state are county taxes alone; there being no general state tax of any kind. Men who live by their labor, or without work, who have no property, are assessed for a poll so low as to be almost insignificant. It is not poverty that creates delinquency, but a want of appreciation of the moral and political nature of the franchise, which privilege is prized by many white men, and the mass of the colored, simply because it enables them to get money by the sale of it. The notorious practice of purchasing votes by all parties here, as well as in other states, attests the truth of this assertion, and justifies the opinion expressed before about the re-enactment of the feature referred to in the act of 1843. That act was not repealed, as has been said, because it was deemed unconstitutional; but the real purpose of it was to relieve the party just then accidentally in power from the burden of paying the taxes of their proletariat.
Taxes being necessary to the support of government, a state has the right to adopt any measures short of actual disfranchisement to compel their payment. No one doubts the validity of the provision in our statute for imprisonment of non-paying taxables. Would the law be unconstitutional because the collector might choose to take the ultimate course,—upon the eve of an election to shut up in jail non-paying citizens to whom it applied? Why would it not be ? Simply because imprisonment is an extreme remedy for non-payment of liabilities, as old as the law. Then, if such a provision be valid, why is it not that for dropping from the assessment list for 12 months valid ? Such an imprisonment as mentioned would effectually cut off, pro hao vice, the suffrage right, whereas the dropping from the list would, under the circumstances pointed out by the plaintiff's counsel, do nothing more; and in that case the dropping could not be otherwise taken than as done by the voter's consent, who had almost a whole year in which to pay his poll-tax, and thus save himself from delinquency. If the operation of the legislation of 1873 was, proprio vigore, to disfranchise a voter, by preventing him from paying his taxes as others are obliged to do, there would be force in the argument of the plaintiff's counsel; but, as it does not so act, and never at all except as a consequence of his own neglect, which many others in like condition of circumstances in life do not suffer themselves to be guilty of, it cannot be charged to the law that he loses temporarily the privilege of voting, but only to his own inattention to his opportunity to retain it. He has simply omitted a duty he owed to himself, and to the public,—if such persons can be supposed to be under any obligation to the body politic,—and deserves all the consequences resulting from his indifference to his interest. Without it can be shown, which it was not, and cannot be, (and that fact seemed to embarrass the learned counsel in their elaborate argu ment,) that the legislation of 1873 disfranchises a voter in spite of himself, or takes some advantage of him against which he had no means of protecting himself, it is too much to ask this court to avoid it as unconstitutional, and a violation of the organic law of this state.
It seems not necessary to say more than this in regard to the objection to the legislation on the ground of its alleged hostility to the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments of the constitution of the United States,—that in this state every man, rich or poor, black or white, has the equal protection of the laws at all times, whether he be a legal voter or not; the. ability to vote being no more necessary to secure that protection in his case than in that of women and minors, who, and whose property, are as much under the shield of the law's protection as is that of any man, great or small. A delinquent taxable is as much safeguarded in his personal rights as is he who owns houses and land. The notion that the right to exercise the suffrage is, in Delaware, necessary for the protection of one's person or property, is purely fanciful, and without any reality of reason. The fifteenth amendment was meant to secure the right to vote to colored people, and has done it everywhere. Their delinquency generally as tax-payers, or failure to become assessed, is not the fault of the statute, and cannot properly be charged against it. To hold the assessment act void as in conflict with that amendment would be a strain of interpretation which would seem to be repugnant to plain common sense.