Year: 1873

Judge Ward Hunt had to make a mess
of the law in order to convict Susan B.
Anthony of illegal voting, and as to trial
| by jury, he quashed that wholly by ruling
that the jury had no discretion in the
matter, and himself declaring the YER
dict. Surely if it be necessary to set
aside both law and the right of trial by
jury in order to keep lone woman out
of the legal right to vote it is time the
law were overhauled. We have before
stated, in brief, the ground of Miss An
thongs legal claim. The 14th amend
ment declares that all persons born or
naturalized in the United States, and sub
ject to the Jurisdiction thereof, are citi-
zens of the United States, and of the
State wherein they reside, and that no
State shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or inn
munities of citizens of the United States.
In the good old times of the Constitution
as it was, the Supreme Court decided
that the term citizen meant voter. Miss
Anthony puts that and that together,
and claims that she is voter by the Con-
stititution of the United States, and that
all the abridging State ordinances are
void.
In order to meet this strong point,
Judge Hunt has to resort to the danger
Gus latitude of going behind the letter of
the amendment, and setting up what he
alleges was the intent of its trainers
Some courts have found benefcences in
these amendments which the trainers
never intended They freely administer
! them upon the assumption that the fra
mers were overruled. The customary
phrase for these discoveries is that "they
builded wiser than they knew But
Judge Hunt goes to the other extreme
| and not only refuses to allow them to
build wiser than they knew but proposes
to cut down what they did build, because
he thinks it exceeded their design. How
shall respect for law be preserved if our
courts dance about in this way? - Aii"


The case becomes rather curious when
the woman who is on trial plants herself
on the plain letter of the law, and the
Judge has to go behind it and coniure up
from his own conscienciousness what the
trainers designed, in order to overthrow
her defense. 53i#


Judge Hunt further says that the 14th
amendment created and defined citizen
ship of the United States to settle much
bruited denial that there was any such
thing as citizenship of the United States,
and because there was before no mode of
| obtaining citizenship of the United
! States save by first becoming a citizen of
some State. e@


Behold how the hearts of judges of the
! law become as water before the defiance
! of this single woman, even as the hearts
of the children of Israel before the chal-
lenge of GOLIATH Here is a learned Judge
driven to assert the monstrous doctrine
that there is no citizenship save by legal
| enactment that the inhabitants must
enact constitution, and the constitution
must enact that they are citizens, or there
| ha Oft 1xy 10
Miss Anthony's triumph. She has added
/ the wits of her Judge, although he took
| the case from the jury and convicted
her. Citizens are born, They are not
made, save in the case of persons of for
eign birth. The Constitution plainly
recognized this when it said: mo per-
son except a natural born citizen, or a
citizen of the United States at the time
of this Constitution, shall be eligible to
the Office of President"
| What does Judge Hunt suppose to be
the meaning of the term natural born
citizen y Attorney-GeneralB Bates said it
means mot made by law or otherwise,
but born" He said further: Natural
born citizen recognizes and reafirms the
universal principle common to all nations
and as old as political society, that the
people born in country do constitute
the nation, and as individuals are natu-
raj members of the body polite.
Every person born in the country is at
the moment of birth prima facie citi-
zen." Yet Judge Hunt, affrighted by
woman claiming her right of citizenship,
| few to the monstrous doctrine that there
is no citizenship save as law creates it,
and that till the 14th amendment it was
questionable if citizen of the United
States existed.


Judge Hunt can not lawfully limit the
clause forbidding any State to make any


law denying or abridging the privileges
and immunities of citizens, by what he
SAYS the trainers had solely in view. The


trainers must be held to have intended


what they plainly did. And privileges
and immunities mean in our political


phraseology something more than the
right to live and sell ones labor.


Nor can Judge Hunt limit this protec-


tive clause in the l4th amendment by


the 10Th amendment, which declares cer-'


tain causes for which "the right of citi-


zens of sthe United States to vote shall


not be denied or abridged" This specific


prohibition can not be held TO limit the


general prohibition of the l4th amend
ment, which declares that mo State
shall make or enforce any law which
, shall abridge the privileges or immuni-