Court Opinion

ID: 9448625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:41:24.308994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:30.407201
License: Public Domain

CAMERON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I.
In the civil rights case of Christian, etc. et al. v. Jemison et al., 6 Cir., 303 F.2d 62, this Court had before it the question whether a judgment which had been rendered by a Louisiana state court January 20, 1954, was res judicata of the Christian case. In enumerating the bases of its decision that the former judgment was not res judicata, this Court said, inter alia:
“But the reason that demonstrates its inapplicability most clearly to us is the momentous change that has occurred in the field of constitutional law since the adjudication of the first suit. * * * Three months after the judgment in the state court, the Supreme Court announced its historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 1954, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 * * *. It was the Brown precedent that led to the decisions, previously cited, in which segregation of local transportation facilities had been declared unconstitutional. In other related areas the law has been similarly transformed[Emphasis added.]
Two months prior to the Christian decision, this Court had1 taken like note of the momentous change, stating:
“Bearing in mind that the statute permits the application by the Attor*595ney General to be made without identifying the nature of the information upon which the Attorney General is acting, we simply make the observation that in this day and age an effort to inspect the records of a county having such a disparity in the percentage of voters to eligible citizens as between the races should not be frustrated by the simple expedient of the registrar’s statement that there is nothing wrong.” [Emphasis added.]
In the case before us the majority, seeking to discover the meaning of the statute involved, placed its reliance chiefly upon a series of District Court cases written by Judges from various portions of the nation who are well known exponents of the idea that, in deciding civil rights cases, the courts should ignore the teachings of history and should, as indicated in Christian, supra, accept as authority only cases decided since the Brown case.2 Taking note of this change in attitude towards constitutional construction, a dedicated and distinguished editor 3 wrote these words contemporaneously with the filing of Christian v. Jem-ison, supra:
“In Congress from 1913 to 1947 was a great American — Hatton W. Summers, Democrat, of Texas. He died last week and was eulogized in the House as one of the greatest constitutional lawyers of all time. He was for many years Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee prior to his retirement. He had resisted as dictatorial the effort of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to ‘pack’ the Supreme Court. In a book entitled ‘The Private Citizen and his Democracy,’ published in 1969 * * * Mr. Summers wrote:
“ ‘ * * * There is much to indicate that we have not escaped the mass governmental psychopathic disorders which are the outstanding characteristics of this period * *.
“ ‘May I repeat, the most alarming thing about our situation is the similarity of our attitude to that of the peoples of other times who, with closed eyes and deafened ears, moved to their own destruction. They would not listen. They would not look. Nothing could turn them back. The warnings of history, the admonitions of common sense they would not heed. * * *’
"What we are witnessing today is a breakdown in constitutional government. It began in the late 1930’s when newly appointed Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States embraced the doctrine that ‘the end justifies the means.' A school of thought arose which has held that the method of amending the Constitution, stipulated in the document itself need not be employed if the judges interpret the law in the light of ‘changing times * * * ” [Emphasis added.]
II.
The majority here frankly defends its action in attributing to the words of a statute a meaning not contained in them, by embracing the thesis that the end justifies the means. No question of fact is involved in the case before us — nothing but a question of law — whether the court below had jurisdiction under a statute to enter the mandatory injunction it did *596issue. The appellants did not challenge the facts, basing their argument entirely on the assumption that the court below correctly found all of the facts against Alabama. The majority opinion, nevertheless, justifies devoting half of its length to an exciting recital of the facts, by this statement:
“But the State's willingness to acquiesce in the District Court’s findings does not make them any less facts. Nor does it conceal or shield them from scrutiny insofar as their very detail may reflect light and meaning and necessity on the particular weapon fashioned by the Judge to meet the challenge of such facts. As neat and comfortable as it might be to view microscopically the State’s contention as a sterile question of law, neither the judicial process nor the meaning and purpose of the Civil Rights Acts as a means of effectuating the guarantees of the Fifteenth Amendment permit it. What the Judge ordered to be done must be measured in terms of what the Judge saw.” [Emphasis added.]
It has always been true that “hard cases make bad law.” It is interesting to note that the Attorney General of the United States was acquainted with that fact and showed his reliance upon it in the testimony given by him in January, I960.4 Upon page 360 of the 700 page report of those hearings appears this colloquy:
“The Chairman, Mr. Attorney General, under the Civil Rights Act of 1967, how many suits if any have been instituted?
“Attorney General Rogers. Actually five or six. Two of them involved the Civil Rights Commission itself and four involved action which was started by the United States. * * * The other cases involved Terrell County, Ga.; Macon County, Ala.: one in Louisiana; and one in Tennessee. I might say on that point that it seemed wise to me to make certain that the test cases which we brought under that act, and I use the words ‘test cases’ because it was assumed that the first ones would all be challenged, and that we would make law in the first cases, that those test cases be very strong in their facts, and we tried to be certain that those four cases which were started first would be strong so we could get the constitutional and other legal questions resolved with strong factual support.
"Once those things are decided by the courts, and I hope they will be soon — I think they will be soon— then we can bring other cases with a little less concern about the complete strength of the facts in the case. * * *" [Emphasis added.]
The lengthy recital of the facts here by the majority will not, I apprehend, disappoint the gentleman who boldly made this forecast.
I do not subscribe to the thesis that the end justifies the means — that "What the Judge ordered to be done must be measured in terms of what the Judge saw.” I think we have here a simple legal question which is well stated in the first sentence of the majority opinion,5 so I do not advert to the majority’s discussion of the facts. It is my conviction that, regardless of the facts, the court below was without jurisdiction to issue a mandatory injunction requiring the registration of fifty-four Negro applicants, and I will address my efforts to a discussion of this important question of *597Jurisdiction. This will be a task of no small proportions because, in view of the gravity of the holdings of the majority and the seriousness with which it argues them, a detailed discussion of the statutes upon which the United States relies and a tracing of those statutes back to their beginnings will be necessary, however reluctant many may be to give ear to the teachings of history in reaching such important conclusions.
III.
First, we take issue with the majority statement that the court below was possessed of the power to enter the mandatory injunction it did enter, actually registering fifty-four Negroes, and the majority's assertion that "To support this conclusion we need search no further than the Civil Rights Act of 1957." The crucial words are found in 42 U.S.C.A. § 1971(c):
" * * * the Attorney General may institute for the United States, or in the name of the United States, a civil action or other proper proceeding for preventive relief, including an application for a permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order, or other order, * * *” [Emphasis added.]
The italicized words seem to me to be .so simple that even the uninitiated would doubtless wonder how an argument concerning their meaning could arise. The quoted words confer jurisdiction on the courts of the United States which had not theretofore existed. They vest certain powers in the Attorney General which he did not theretofore possess. They constitute a grant of power to the federal courts which, without them, they would not possess. It is too well settled to justify citing authority that the United States Courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, and that they have no jurisdiction except such as Congress bestows upon them.
The heading of subparagraph (c) reads:
“Preventive relief; injunctions; costs; State as party defendant.”
It would seem that every lawyer and every educated layman would know that the grant of preventive relief encompassed only such relief as would stop somebody from doing something. Black's Law Dictionary, 4th Edition, page 923, contains this definition: "Preventive injunction. One which prohibits the defendant from doing a particular act or commands him to refrain from it.’’
The definition found in 43 C.J.S. Injunctions § 4, p. 408, is in these words:
"Preventive or Prohibitive or Prohibitory Injunction.
"A prohibitive or preventive injunction commands a person to refrain from doing an act and necessarily operates on unperformed acts and prevents a threatened but nonexistent injury.
“An injunction may compel a person to do as well as to refrain from doing, and injunctions are mandatory or preventive according as they command defendant to do, or to refrain from doing, a particular thing.”6
The only jurisdiction lodged in the District Court by the 1957 Act was the power to entertain an action for preventive relief. Whether the mechanics by which the preventive relief was granted should be an injunction, a restraining order, or some other order, the scope of the order was, by the grant of power, limited to relief which was preventive.
The decree which the District Court entered and which is now before us for review contains several pages of preventive relief and quite a few items of mandatory relief, but the part of the decree we are testing at the moment does not grant any preventive relief at all:
“It is the further order, judgment and decree of this Court that said de*598fendants [officials of the State of Alabama] within ten days from the date of this decree place upon the current and permanent registration rolls, or any official copies thereof, the names of the following Negro citizens, unless one or more of said citizens have become deceased or possessed with some disqualification to register and vote since the date of their application or applications [names omitted].
“It is the further order, judgment and decree of this Court that the defendants within ten days from the date of this decree notify all the above-named citizens that their names have been placed upon the permanent registration rolls * * * [and] that the said defendants file with the Clerk of this Court within fifteen days from the date of this decree a report in writing reflecting their compliance with the above part of this decree. * * *"
An examination of the complaint shows that, in paragraph one, it was stated that the action was brought “to obtain preventive relief against acts and practices by the defendants * * * and that every item of the prayers for relief is for preventive relief only. It is not intimated in any pleading that the United States was asking the court to order Alabama to register any applicant or to do anything except to refrain from acts of discrimination.
It is further clear from colloquys between court and counsel that nothing but a prohibitory injunction was sought. But I will not pause to set out any of those colloquys because they are of minute importance in comparison with the legal question of whether positive relief could be given by mandatory injunction under the statute relied upon by the majority.
It is important to bear in mind at every stage of the argument that the court below had no power at all to enter the order it did enter except the one statute quoted supra. The majority has strained hard, with the assistance of highly trained specialists brought into the case by the United States Government, to find some case which would justify the granting of positive mandatory relief commanding the defendants to do certain things in defiance of the action of Congress in limiting the relief provided in the Act to preventive relief; but it has failed completely in its effort to do so. The only case directly on the subject was decided by the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Louisiana, Byrd v. Brice, 1952, 104 F.Supp. 442, affirmed 5 Cir., 1953, 201 F.2d 664, wherein the District Judge wrote that he would not direct the registrar to register any one of the complainants in that case: “A direct mandate from us would be usurpation by us of the discretionary function of the registrar.”
Considering itself commissioned to take the initiative in “fashioning a body of federal substantive law” to fit its concept of what Congress ought, or must have, intended the words used by it to mean, the majority has made a 'brave and brash start. The trouble is that Congress used language which is not susceptible of the construction the majority essays to place upon it, and Congress manifestly chose its words carefully in an effort to bring the statute within constitutional limitations.
The Supreme Court case most relied upon by the Government and apparently by the majority is Porter, Price Administrator v. Warner Holding Co., 1946, 328 U.S. 395, 66 S.Ct. 1086, 90 L.Ed. 1332. The court there was engaged in applying the injunctive provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act. Those provisions were quoted by the court (p. 399, 66 S.Ct. p. 1089) thus: “* * * the language of § 205(a) * * * expressly authorizes the District Court, upon a proper showing, to grant ‘a permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order, or other order.' ” That statute does not restrict the relief to be granted to preventive relief. It grants the right to the court to issue every kind of injunction, both mandatory and prohibitory. The language of the statute conferring juris*599diction upon the District Court m Porter is, therefore, essentially different from the language of the statute granting in-junctive power to the court in the case before us. Porter is no authority at all in this case, because the jurisdiction of the court there was not confined to preventive relief.
The majority adverts in general terms to the congressional history of the legislation as supporting its position; but it does not quote any of the legislative history. The chief quotation contained in the Government’s brief is from the statement by Attorney General Brownell "of what could be done by way of the injunc-tive process under the proposal.” The witness was describing certain alleged discriminatory acts as having been committed in the State of Mississippi. His reference to the use of the injunctive power is contained in this statement:
“Now, we believe that if the Attorney General had the power to invoke the injunctive process that the registrar could have been ordered to stop these discriminatory practices and qualify these citizens according to Mississippi law without having to go to the criminal process.”
It is plain that what the Attorney General was doing there was to compare the ease with which a registrar could be .forced to refrain from discriminatory practices with the difficulties attendant upon resort to the criminal process.
The Attorney General testified in more definite terms in the further hearings before the Senate Committee.7 On page € of the report of these hearings, he stated: “In a civil proceeding for preventive relief or for a declaratory judgment, the constitutionality of the election practice could be quickly determined and appropriate relief awarded. Criminal remedies at best come after the harm has been done. Furthermore, we all know that jurors are reluctant — ”
In the same report (p. 30), the Attorney General answered the question of a senator in these words:
“Senator Ervin. The proposed amendments embodies in part 3 and part 4 of S. 83 provide that ‘district courts of the United States could exercise the jurisdiction given them without regard to whether the parties aggrieved shall have exhausted any administrative or other remedies that may be provided by law.’ I ask you if the Federal courts could not assume the power under those provisions to determine in the first instance whether a person possessed the qualifications for registering and voting ?
“Mr. Brownell. No; I think the answer is definitely no on that.’’ [Emphasis added.]
At page 10 of House Report 291 of the House of Representatives issued April 1, 1957 (Eighty-fifth Congress, First Session), appears the following statement:
“The effect of the provisions of the proposed bill * * * is not to expand the rights presently protected, but merely to provide the Attorney General with the right to bring a civil action or all the proper proceedings for relief to prevent acts or practices which would give rise to a cause of action under the three existing subsections * * [Emphasis added.]
And at page 11 of the same report, the following language is used:
“ * * * The succeeding subsection of the amendment, which is designated subsection (c), does provide a remedy in the form of civil action instituted on the part of the Attorney General to prevent an act which would deprive a person of any right or privilege secured by subsection *600(a) or (b) of Section 1971 ps amended by this bill. The Attorney General would be authorized to institute for the United States * * * a civil action or other proper proceeding for preventive relief when any person has engaged or there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person is about to engage in any act * * [Emphasis added.]
It appears to me, therefore, that what congressional history there is shows clearly that everyone understood that the Act of Congress was being called upon to pass was one which permitted court orders for preventive relief only.
IV.
The fundamental error committed by the majority in its determination of the meaning of the statute before us is further established by consideration of the history of the statute, placing it in the proper perspective which belongs to it as an integral part of the aggregation of statutes popularly referred to as the Civil Rights Acts. The Supreme Court has, from time to time, referred to the difficulty of determining the meaning of these statutes, subjected as they were to the process of enactment, subsequent repeal, declared invalidity as being beyond the sanction of the Constitution, and re-enactment. What that court said in Stefanelli v. Minard, 1951, 342 U.S. 117, 121, 72 S.Ct. 118, 120, 96 L.Ed. 138, (dealing, not with the statute before us, but with a companion statute) is illustrative:
“These considerations have informed our construction of the Civil Rights Act. This Act has given rise to differences of application here. Such differences inhere in the attempt to construe the remaining fragments of a comprehensive enactment, dismembered by partial repeal and invalidity, loosely and blindly drafted in the first instance, and drawing on the whole Constitution itself for its scope and meaning. Regardless of differences in particular cases, however, the Court’s lodestar of adjudication has been that the statute ‘should be construed so as to respect the proper balance between the States and the federal government in law enforcement.' Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 108, [65 S.Ct. 1031, 89 L.Ed. 1495]. Only last term we reiterated our conviction that the Civil Rights Act ‘was not to be used to centralize power so as to upset the federal system.' ”
Further background for consideration of the present statute is furnished by the language of the Supreme Court in United States v. Williams et al., 1951, 341 U.S. 70, 74, 71 S.Ct. 581, 583, 95 L.Ed. 758:
“The dominant conditions of the Reconstruction Period were not conducive to the enactment of carefully considered and coherent legislation. Strong post-war feeling caused inadequate deliberation and led to loose and careless phrasing of laws relating to the new political issues. * * * Although enacted together, they were proposed by different sponsors and hastily adopted. They received little attention in debate. * * *»8
*601V.
Contrary to the majority’s assertion9 our research discloses that subsection (a) of Section 1971 of Title 42 U.S.C.A., was first enacted on May 31, 1870, by the 41st Congress, 2nd Session, as Section, Chapter 114, 16 Statutes at L. 140, and appears as Section 1, as follows:
“That all citizens of the United States who are or shall be otherwise qualified by law to vote at any election by the people in any State, Territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial subdivision, shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all such elections, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; any constitution, law, custom, usage, or regulation of any State or Territory, or by or under its authority, to the contrary notwithstanding.” [Emphasis added.]
This section was clearly directed towards citizens of the United States only,9a who are otherwise qualified or registered by the people of the state, or its subdivisions and who were not to be qualified by any federal legislative, judicial, or executive body.
There should not be any issue that Section 1 of the Force Act of May 31, 1870, was so directed, when it is noted that Section 2 of the same Act was directed solely and alone to registration, as witness that Section:
"That if by or under the authority of the constitution or laws of any State, or the laws of any Territory, any act is or shall be required to be done as a prerequisite or qualification for voting, and by such constitution or laws persons or officers are or shall be charged with the performance of duties in furnishing to citizens an opportunity to perform such prerequisite, or to become qualified to vote, it shall be the duty of every such person and officer to give to all citizens of the United States the same and equal opportunity to perform such prerequisite, and to become qualified to vote without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and if any such person or officer shall refuse or knowingly omit to give full effect to this section, he shall, for every such offense, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars to the person aggrieved thereby, to be recovered by an action on the case, with full costs, and such allowance for counsel fees as the court shall deem just, and shall also, for every such offense, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be fined not less than five hundred dollars, or be imprisoned not less than one month and not more than one year, or both, at the discretion of the court."10
In a slightly changed form, Section 1 of the Force Act of May 31, 1870, and which is now subsection (a) of § 1971, Title 42, U.S.C.A., appeared in the form *602of § 2004 of the Revised Statutes, as follows:
"All citizens of the United States who are otherwise qualified by law to vote at any election by the people in any State, Territory, district, county, city, parish, township, school district, municipality, or other territorial subdivision, shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all such elections, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; any constitution, law, custom, usage, or regulation of any State or Territory, or by or under its authority, to the contrary notwithstanding." . [Emphasis added.]
Also, in slightly changed form, Section 2 of the Force Act of May 31, 1870 appeared as two sections in the Revised Statutes, in the form of Section 2006:
“When, under the authority of the constitution or laws of any State, or the laws of any Territory, any act is required to be done as a prerequisite or qualification for voting, and by such constitution or laws persons or officers are charged with the duty of furnishing to citizens an opportunity to perform such prerequisite, or to become qualified to vote, every such person and officer shall give to all citizens of the United States the same and equal opportunity to perform such prerequisite, and to become qualified to vote.”
and Section 2006:
“Every person or officer charged with the duty specified in the preceding section, who refuses or knowingly omits to give full effect to that section, shall forfeit the sum of five hundred dollars to the party aggrieved by such refusal or omission, to be recovered by an action on the case, with costs, and such allowance for counsel fees as the court may deem just.”
On September 20, 1893, during the 63rd Congress, first Session, the House of Representatives, in Report No. 18, reported out House Bill No. 2331, which later was enacted by Congress on February 8, 1894, being Chapter 26 of the laws of the 63rd Congress, 2nd Session, which repealed most of the Force Act of May 81, 1870. Here are appropriate excerpts from said House Report, at page 1:
“The bill provided for the repeal of section 2002 of the Revised Statutes of the United States relating to the bringing of armed troops to the place of election, and of Section 2006, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 relating to the -appointment, qualifications, powers, duties and compensation of supervisors of election; and also for the repeal of sections 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030, and 2031 relating to the appointment, qualifications, powers, duties, and compensation of special deputy marshals.
“Also for the repeal of sections 6506, 6611, 5512, 5513, 5514, 5515, 5520, 5521, 6522, and 5523 relating to crimes and their punishment; and also a part of section 643 as follows: ‘Or is commenced against any officer of the United States on account of any act done under the provisions of Title twenty-six, “The Elective Franchise,” or on account of any right, title or authority claimed by such officer or other person under any of the said provisions." 11
“The appointment of supervisors presumes something to supervise and the right to supervision. These sections relate to the right of super*603visors and deputy marshals to supervise the election of Representatives in Congress; and the initial point, therefore, is as to the right of the United States to supervise the election of members of Congress, and if the right exists whether it is proper for them to do so. * * *
“We notice, first, that ‘the times, places and manner of holding elections, etc., is primarily confided to' the legislature of each State; secondarily, it is given to the Congress.
“The language itself and the arrangement of the two clauses show this: The times, places, and manner, etc., shall be prescribed by the legislature of each State.
“But the Congress may, by law, at any time make or alter, etc.
“The first is original and primary, the second is permissive and contingent. The legislatures and Congress cannot both have original and primary power to act on the same subject at the same time. Such a conflict would never have been sanctioned. Nor can we believe that men who draughted this section intended to distinguish it from every other in the Constitution in granting the two distinct and separate authorities co-equal power over the same subject at the same time. Nor can we conceive a greater absurdity than the grant of plenary power to the legislatures of the States in the first clause of the section, only to be abrogated and annulled in the second clause of the same section.
“We can not believe that the intelligence which framed that great instrument, careful in avoiding any conflicts that would probably arise between the State and Federal authorities (for that hour was resonant with jealousies of power), deliberately placed this power into two distinct hands to be exercised, it may be, at the same time and in different ways; and it is equally improbable that the power given the legislatures of the States, as the authority best suited in the minds of the makers of the Constitution, to provide ‘the times, manner, and places of holding, etc.,’ was intended, without reason or cause, to be taken from them and arbitrarily assumed by Congress ; and that, too, when there had been no failure on the parts of the States to provide the necessary machinery and no impropriety in the machinery provided. * * *
“With this state of things we find these statutes which are sought to be repealed create officers whose duties it shall be to supervise, scrutinize, and watch every act of the officers of the States. This of itself must create friction, and the history of the country since the enactment of these laws, has demonstrated their unwisdom in this respect. The power to guard, scrutinize, and inspect implies the power to correct or prevent that which is scrutinized. The power to supervise implies the power to compel the doing or to prevent the doing of the thing which is the subject of the supervision. How then can the United States, by its supervisors and deputy marshals, supervise an election under a law which it has not enacted or scrutinize the registration (a condition of suffrage in many of the States) *604when the right of suffrage emanates from the State itself and the State alone can determine it? [Emphasis supplied by the Report.] 12
“This leaves the right of suffrage and the conditions of suffrage in the States. By what authority, then, can a Federal officer, by challenge or otherwise at the polls or on registration day, determine the question of suffrage which the Constitution of the United States has left solely to the States to determine?
"Many of these statutes also impose penalties upon the election officers of the States, in the conduct of elections, for a violation of the State laws. Was ever a more monstrous proposition written on the statute books of a free country? The power to make laws is a sovereign power. It carries with it the power to punish for the violation of such laws, but the two powers must be coordináte. The power that creates the law can inflict punishment for its violation, but no power can inflict punishment rightfully for the violation of a law which it never made. To attempt it, as has been done in the past, has resulted only in irritation, contention, and criticism of the government that has proposed it.” [Emphasis supplied by the Report.] 13
It appears, therefore, that Section 1 of the Force Act of May 31, 1870 (Section 2004 of the Revised Statutes) pertaining solely to voting rights was not repealed,14 but only those sections, i. e., Section 2 of the Force Act of May 31, 1870, or Section 2004 of the Revised Statutes, remain as Section 2004 of the Revised Statutes, and appeared in the United States Code up to September 9, 1957, as Section 1971, of Title 42 U.S. C.A.
Through the heated debates of 195715 and I96016 the remainder of § 1971, which is now subsection (a) of § 1971 of Title 42, U.S.C.A., remained as originally enacted as Section 2004 of the Revised Statutes.
It was through no accident that Section 2004, Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C.A. § 1971(a)), applying to voting solely, was never repealed, but Sections 2005 and 2006, Revised Statutes, applying solely to qualifying or registering of voting or voters, were. The reach of the Fifteenth Amendment17 was never meant to apply to registration, but was only to protect against denials, not dis*605tinctions, because of race or color, to vote.
VI.
A review of the Supreme Court decisions demonstrates the propriety of the repeal by the Second Session of the 63rd Congress, and lack of constitutional authority here.
In the case of Minor v. Happersett, 1876, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 22 L.Ed. 627, a woman sought the privilege to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment,18 based upon the privileges and immunities clause thereunder, and such contention was rejected by the Supreme Court with the following language (88 U.S. 162):
"The Amendment did not add to the privileges and immunities of a citizen. It simply furnished an additional guaranty for the protection of such as he already had. No new voters were necessarily made by it. Indirectly it may have had that effect, because it may have increased the number of citizens entitled to suffrage under the Constitution and laws of the States, but it operates for this purpose, if at all, through the States and the state laws, and not directly upon the citizens. * * *
“It is clear, therefore, we think, that the Constitution has not added the right of suffrage to the privileges and immunities of citizenship as they existed at the time it was adopted. This makes it • proper to inquire whether suffrage was co-extensive with the citizenship of the States at *606the time of its adoption. If it was, then it may with force be argued that suffrage was one of the rights which belonged to citizenship, and in the enjoyment of which every citizen must be protected. But if it was not, the contrary may with propriety be assumed. * * *
“Upon an examination of those Constitutions we find that in no State were all citizens 'permitted to vote. Each State determined for itself who should have that power. * * *
“Certainly, if the courts can consider any question settled, this is one. For nearly ninety years the people have acted upon the idea that the Constitution, when it conferred citizenship, did not necessarily confer the right of suffrage. If uniform practice, long continued, can settle the construction of so important an instrument as the Constitution of the United States confessedly is, most certainly it has been done here. Our province is to decide what the law is, not to declare what it should be.” [Emphasis added.]
The Supreme Court, after reaching this conclusion under the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, came to the conclusion under the Fifteenth Amendment, in the case of United States v. Reese, 1876, 92 U.S. 214, 23 L.Ed. 563, where the defendant, Reese, and others, inspectors of elections, were charged with the crime of refusal to accept and count the vote of a person of African descent, at a municipal election under § 2004 Revised Statutes (42 U.S. C.A. § 1971 (a)) that :
“The Fifteenth Amendment does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone/’19
The Court (92 U.S. 214, 216) held that § 2004, Revised Statutes (42 U.S. C.A. § 1971(a)):
“ * * * simply declares a right, without providing a punishment for its violation.” [Emphasis added.]
The Court further held that Section 2 of the Force Act of May 31, 1870, dealt with qualifications for registration and as this was a case concerning the receiving and counting of votes, that Section 2 of the Force Act of May 31, 1870, has no application to the case at hand. Here is the language of the Court (92 U.S. 214-216):
“The 2d section (Act of May 31, 1870) provides for the punishment of any officer charged with the duty of furnishing to citizens an opportunity to perform any Act, which, by the Constitution or laws of any State, is made a prerequisite or qualification of voting, who shall omit to give all citizens of the United States the same and equal opportunity to perform such prerequisite, and become qualified on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, of the applicant. This does not apply to or include the inspectors of an election, whose only duty it is to receive and count the votes of citizens, designated by law as voters, who have already become qualified to vote at t/ie election.” [Emphasis added.]
In the case of McPherson v. Blacker, 1892, 146 U.S. 1, 13 S.Ct. 3, 36 L.Ed. 869, the court had before it the question of whether a certain Michigan Statute, setting up the voting for presidential electors, was in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Court held that such was not in violation of the *607Fourteenth Amendment nor of the Fifteenth Amendment, using the following language:
“The Fifteenth Amendment exempted citizens of the United States from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The right to vote in the States comes from the States, but the right of exemption from the prohibited discrimination comes from the United States. The first has not been granted or secured by the Constitution of the United States, but the last has been. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 [,23 L.Ed. 588] (23:588); United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. 214 [,23 L.Ed. 563] (23:563) * * *.
“The right to vote intended to be protected refers to the right to vote as established by the laws and constitution of the State. There is no color for the contention that under the amendments every male inhabitant of the State being a citizen of the United States has from the time of his majority a right to vote for presidential electors.” [Emphasis added.]
In the case of Karem v. United States, 1903, 121 F. 250, 255 (no appeal noted) 20 the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that:
“The affirmative right to vote * * * is still dependent upon and secured by the Constitution and laws of the state, the power of the state to prescribe the qualification being limited in only one particular.” [Emphasis added.]
The Supreme Court, having concluded that the right to vote emanates from the states and not the federal government, has held that the qualifications and registration of qualified persons also belongs exclusively to the states.
In the case of Pope v. Williams, 1904, 193 U.S. 621, 24 S.Ct. 573, 48 L.Ed. 817, the appellant, Pope, refused to comply with the Maryland registration procedure and brought action declaring that the refusal of the registration board to register him was in violation of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court (193 U.S. 621, 632, 633, 24 S.Ct. 573, 575) set aside these contentions and set forth the following as the appropriate requirements of registration:
“The privilege to vote in any State is not given by the Federal Constitution, or by any of its amendments. It is not a privilege springing from citizenship of the United States. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, [22 L.ed 627]. It may not be refused on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, but it does not follow from mere citizenship of the United States. In other words, the privilege to vote in a State is within the jurisdiction of the State itself, to be exercised as the State may direct, and upon such terms as to it may seem proper, provided, of course, no discrimination is made between individuals in violation of the Federal Constitution. The State might provide that persons of foreign birth could vote without being naturalized, and, as stated by Mr. Chief Justice Waite in Minor v. Happersett, supra, [21 Wall. 162, 22 L.ed 627] such persons were allowed to vote in several of the States upon having declared their intentions to become citizens of the United States. Some States permit women to vote; others refuse them that privilege. A State, so far as the Federal Constitution is concerned, might provide by its own constitution and laws that none but native-born citizens should be permitted to vote, as the Federal Constitution does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, and the conditions under which that right is to be exercised are matters for the states alone to prescribe, * * *
*608***** the elector must be one entitled to vote under the state statute. (Id., Id.) See also Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U.S. 487, 491, [22 Sup.Ct. 783, 46 L.ed. 1005, 1007] * * *.
“We are unable to see any violation of the Federal Constitution in the provision of the state statute for the declaration of the intent of a person coming into the State before he can claim the right to be registered as a voter.”
The Supreme Court (referring with approval to many of the older cases discussed here) has reached the same conclusion in the recent case of Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Election Commissioners, 1958, 360 U.S. 45, 79 S. Ct. 985, 3 L.Ed.2d 1072, where the Court (360 U.S. at pp. 50-51, 79 S.Ct. at p. 989) stated:
“The States have long been held to have broad powers to determine the conditions under which the right of suffrage may be exercised, Pope v. Williams, 193 U.S. 621, [622], 633; [24 S.Ct. 673, 574] * *
VII.
A brief look at what the Congress did. in the passage of the Act of 1957 will be found helpful. The Committee of the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, on April 1, 1957, reported21 HR 6127 favorably to the House for action, and this bill as amended became the Civil Rights Act of 1957. At the same time, the Senate was considering several bills, but finally reported and passed S83, in an amended form. These bills had both been prepared by the administration and had identical sections known as “Part IV — To Provide Means of Further Securing and Protecting the Right to Vote.” HR 6127, enacted September 9, 1957, became Public Law 85-315 of the Eighty-fifth Congress, First Session, U. S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, 1957, p. 707 this constituting the amenda-tory part of Section 2004, Revised Statutes, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1971.22
What the Congress did, therefore, had to do only with voting. The word “registration” was not used one time in the Act of 1957. It seems clear that the Congress at that time did not think that *609It had the right to deal with registration, recognizing that the language of the Fifteenth Amendment did not grant the right of registration to anyone, and concerning itself solely with securing the right to vote at state elections against racial denials.
Subsection (b) of the Act of 1957 mentions the word “vote” at least four times, and never hints that registration was within the contemplation of the Congress. The injunctive power given to district courts by Section (c) dealt alone with privileges secured by Sections (a) and (b).
It seems to me, therefore, clear beyond doubt that the language of the 1957 Act and everything which was done in connection with the passing of it, particularly when it is construed in the light of its history, applied to voting alone and had no application whatever to registration. It is interesting to note that the Government started out in its complaint here asking relief under both the 1957 Act and the 1960 Act. During the course of the battle, the Government mended its hold and placed its reliance solely upon the 1957 Act, and the majority followed that course, and in doing so committed, in my opinion, clear error.
VIII.
This conclusion is strongly buttressed by the very fact that the Department of Justice pressed for a new Act dealing with registration, and that the Congress passed the 1960 Civil Rights Act. If, as now contended, the powers conferred by the 1957 Act already included jurisdiction in the courts to deal with registration, it was a meaningless act for the Department of Justice to induce Congress to amend the 1957 Act so as to include registration.
The first sentence of the last paragraph of subdivision (e) of § 1971, added by the Congress in 1960, provides:
“When used in the subsection, the word ‘vote' includes all action necessary to make a vote effective including but not limited to, registration or other action required by State law prerequisite to voting * [Emphasis added.]
It is plain that the registration provisions had application only to proceedings instituted under subdivision (e). The Government, in its brief, invited 23 this Court to accept this thesis, and the majority did accept it.24
Under these circumstances, it is difficult to understand the action of the Department of Justice in presenting, and of Congress in passing, the Civil Rights Act of 1960 if the court was already, by the Act of 1957, given jurisdiction to deal with registrations, as well as with voting.
IX.
The length of this dissent is justified only by my conviction that the majority opinion strikes at probably the most vital point of the relationship between the State and the Federal Union. Unless the *610important functions of the elective process reserved by the States in their written compact with the central government are actually to be retained by them, the form of government under which we have lived no longer exists. This aspect of the dual sovereignty cannot be attacked under the theories of some Judges that those portions of the Constitution which deal with such subjects as commerce between the States are outmoded and unrealistic in the changed conditions of the Jet Age. The selection of those who shall govern is fundamental, and the responsibility for this selection was lodged exclusively in the States. Has anybody advanced any argument tending to prove that changing conditions have rendered illogical this important function of government? I have not heard it.
The thoughts emanating from Congress, reproduced at length supra, show definitely that those who had participated in the War Between the States and their sons were, less than three decades after its ending more convinced than ever that this Republic could remain strong only by preserving the rights and powers of the States in the business of the Partnership which has commanded the universal admiration and approval of mankind. The fact is that those who would so debase the states by piling government on top of government in Washington, date themselves as embracing a philosophy of the pre-horse-and-buggy-days.
Witness the expressions of recognized “liberals" on this important subject.
Mr. Justice Douglas, of Connecticut, dissenting in New York v. United States, 326 U.S. 572, 592, 66 S.Ct. 310, 319, 90 L.Ed. 326 (1944), wrote:
“If, * * * any federal tax on any state activity were sustained unless it discriminated against the State, then a constitutional rule would be fashioned which would undermine the sovereignty of the States as it has been understood throughout our history. Any such change should be accomplished only by constitutional amendment. *
“Woodrow Wilson stated the starting point for me when he said (Constitutional Government in the United States, pp. 183-184) that ‘the States of course possess every power that government has ever anywhere exercised, except only those powers which their own constitutions or the Constitution of the United States explicitly or by plain inference withhold. They are the ordinary governments of the country; the federal government is its instrument only for particular purposes.' * * *
“The notion that the sovereign position of the States must find its protection in the will of a transient majority of Congress is foreign to and a negation of our constitutional system. There will often be vital regional interests represented by no majority in Congress. The Constitution was designed to keep the balance between the States and the Nation outside the field of legislative controversy. * * * TP. 594 [66 S.Ct. p. 320]]
“ * * * The Constitution is a compact between sovereigns. * * ” [P. 595 [66 S.Ct. p. 320]]
Chief Justice Chase of Ohio, an ap pointee of President Lincoln, speaking foi a court no one of whom came from a Confederate State, used these words in Texas v. White, 1868, 7 Wall. 700, 725, 19 L.Ed. 227:
“And we have already had occasion to remark at this time that ‘the people of each state compose a state, having its own government, and endowed with all the functions essential to separate and independent existence,’ and that ‘without the states in union, there could be no such political body as the United States.’ Not only, therefore, can there be no loss of separate and independent autonomy of the states through their *611union under the Constitution, but it may not be unreasonably said that the preservation of the states, and the' maintenance of their governments, are as muéh within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National government. The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible union, composed of indestructible states.”
Finally, I think that those of us who feel that wfe can speak with such infallible assurance in the civil rights field would do well to ponder the words of Mr. Justice- Jackson (a “rebel” from upper New York State) in his third Godkin Lecture prepared for delivery to the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration.25 From pages 70-72 of this booklet these words are taken:
"The Court has been drawing into the federal system more and more control by federal agencies over local police agencies. I have no doubt that the latter are often guilty of serious invasions of individual rights. But there are more fundamental questions involved in the interpretation of the antiquated, cumbersome, and vague civil rights statutes which give the Department of Justice the right to prosecute state officials. [Such prosecutions are in progress at this moment.] If the Department of Justice must prosecute local officials, the FBI must investigate them, and no local agency which is subject to federal investigation, inspection, and discipline is a free agency. * * * At his trial Hermann Goering, with great candor, related the steps by which the Nazi party obtained complete domination of Germany, and one of the first was the establishment of the supremacy of the national over the local police authorities. So it was in Russia, and so it has been in every totalitarian state. * * * I believe that the safeguard of our liberty lies in limiting any national policing on investigative organization, first of all to a small number of strictly federal offenses, and secondly to non-political ones * * *.
“But I think in the long run the transgressions of liberty by the Federal Government, with its all-powerful organization, are much more to be feared than those of the several states, which have a greater capacity for self-correction.”
These words were written but a few months after he had participated in the Brown decision. Certainly no one would question that he had probably the best chance of any man of his generation to evaluate the American system and compare it with other governmental systems. It is not necessary to conjecture what he would have thought of the unwarranted distortion by the majority of Congress’ words here, and of the spectacle of the invasion by the bright young men from the North which is taking place in the South today. A kind providence spared him the pain of watching groups of highly trained representatives of the central government, brought from its seat of power in Washington, backing their ponderous cameras up to country courthouses in the rural sections of the South, photographing the records of the sovereign States and haling their elected officials into court to answer the variegated charges made by men who do not understand — the creature turning upon the creator to rend it — and all with the solemn sanction of Judges who ought to understand.
I respectfully dissent.

. Kennedy v. Bruce, 5 Cir., 298 F.2d 860.

. The Christian and Bruce cases and the majority opinion here are the product of four Judges of this Court. The ‘‘momentous change that has occurred in the field of constitutional law” may be traced, to a large extent, to four Justices of the Supreme Court who constitute the hard core of crusaders for this ‘‘momentous change.”
(Nothing said in this dissent reflects in the slightest degree upon the integrity or sincerity of any of the Judges mentioned. The words here used are directed solely at their philosophy of government.

. David Lawrence in U. S. News and World Report, Vol. LII, No. 18, p. 112.

. Hearings before the Committee on Rules and Administration, United States Senate, 86th Congress, Second Session, on a half dozen bills dealing with the general subject. Appearing on every page of the published report of those hearings is the heading “FEDERAL REGISTRARS."

. “This case presents the question whether, under the Civil Rights Act of 1957, as amended 1960, in a suit brought by the United States, the District Court may affirmatively order the registration of specified Alabama Negro voters found by the Court to have been discriminatorily denied registration because of their race and color.”

. The definition of Mandatory Injunction, as given in 43 C.J.S. § 5, p. 409, reads: “A mandatory injunction is an extraordinary remedial process which commands the performance of some positive act * *

. The same theme was followed in Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U.S. 651, 656-657, 71 S.Ct. 937, 939, 95 L.Ed. 1253, where the court was speaking of another of the series of related Acts:
“The Act was among the last of the reconstruction legislation to be based on the ‘conquered province’ theory which prevailed in Congress for a period following the Civil War. * * *
“The Act, popularly known as the Ku Klux Act, was passed by a partisan vote in a highly inflamed atmosphere. It was preceded by spirited debate which pointed out its grave character and susceptibility to abuse, and its defects were soon realized when its execution brought about a severe reaction.
“The provision establishing criminal conspiracies in language indistinguishable from that used to describe civil conspiracies came to judgment in United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629, [1 S.Ct. 601, 27 L.Ed. 290]. It was held unconstitutional *601This decision was in harmony with that of other important decisions during that period by a Court, every member of which had been appointed by President Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Garfield or Arthur *

. The Civil Eights Act of September 9, 1957, Public Law 85-315, 85th Congress, 1st Session, amended Section 2004, of Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C.A. § 1971), by adding subsections (a), (b), first part of (c), (d) and what is presently (f), of Title 42 U.S.C.A. Subsection (a) did not change the substantive nature of Section 2004 Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C.A. § 1971) but added a new catch line.

. The Slaughter-House Cases, 1873, 16 Wall. 36, 74, 21 L.Ed. 394, clearly pointed out that there was a clear distinction between citizenship of the State and citizenship of the United States with the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourth Amendment being directed solely and alone to those federal rights created by the Constitution of the United States and not to the privileges and immunities arising from the relation of a citizen of his state.

. There were twenty-three sections enacted on May 31, 1870, which were known as “An act to enforce the Rights of Citi*602zens of the United States to vote in the several States of this Union, and for other Purposes” — many of which, wore subso-quenty declared unconstitutional, as shown in footnote 11.

. A. Sections repealed as declared unconstitutional under the Fifteen Amendment:
1. Sec. 3, May 31, 1870 — Sec. 2007 and 2008, Revised Statutes — U. S. v. Reese, 1876, 92 U.S. 214, 23 L.Ed. 563.
*6032. .Sec. 4, May 31, 1870 — Sec. 2009, Revised Statutes; — Crim. Sec. 5506, Revised Statutes, U. S. v. Reese, supra.
B. Sections not repealed, but declared beyond the reach of the Fifteen Amendment:
3. Sec. 5, May 31, 1870, — Crim. Sec. 5507, Revised Statutes,-U. S. v. Lackey, 1901, 6 Cir., 107 F. 114, certiorari denied, 181 U.S. 621, 21 S.Ct. 925, 45 L.Ed. 1032.
4. Sec. 6, May 31, 1870, — Crim.Sec. 5508, Revised Statutes,-Karem v. United States, 6 Cir., 121 F. 250 (no appeal).
5. Sec. 7, May 31, 1870 — Crim. Sec. 5509, Revised Statutes-United States v. Sanges, 1891, 5 Cir., 48 F. 78, affirmed on other grounds, 144 U.S. 310, 12 S.Ct. 609, 36 L.Ed. 445.

. Ibid. p. 6.

. Ibid. p. 7.

. ‘‘Sections 2004, 5507, 5508, and 5509 * * * are all that is left, * * United States v. Lackey, 1900, 6 Cir., 99 F. 952, 969, reversed on other grounds, supra (107 F. 114).

. See House Report 291 of the 85th Congress, 1st Session, of April 1, 1957, U.S.Code Congressional and Administrative News, 1959, p. 1966, see also Hearings before the Subcommittee on Constitutional' Rights, United States Senate, 85th Congress, 1st Session, on February 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, March 1, 4, and 5, 1957.

. Se'e House Report 956, 86th Congress, 1st Session, of August 20, 1959, and also Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary^ United States Senate, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, of March 28, 29, 1960 U.S.Code Congressional and Administrative News, 1960, p. 1925.

.It comes too late in the day to argue that Section 2004 of the Revised Statutes finds substance in Article 1, Section 4, “ * * * Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections * * or Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, for “ * * * section 2004 be regarded as anything more than a declaration of the effect of the fifteenth amendment, * * * ” “the power of Congress to legislate at all upon the subject of voting at purely state elections is entirely dependent upon the fifteenth amendment. United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. 214, 23 L.Ed. 563; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 23 L.Ed. 588.” [Emphasis added.] Karem v. United States, 1903, 6 Cir., 121 F. 250, 252, 254. The Supreme Court has recently reached the same conclusion that Section 2004 of the Revised Statutes is based solely upon the Fifteenth Amendment, United States v. Raines, 1960, 362 U.S. 17, 25, 80 S.Ct 519, 4 L.Ed.2d 524.
*605The question of any rights, privileges, immunities, or protection to vote at any so-called federal election under Article I, Section 4, and Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, never arises in view of the fact that this suit is brought solely under the Fifteenth Amendment and § 2004, of the Revised Statutes, as amended in 1957 and 1960, which are directed to state elections.
The power of Congress to legislate under Article I, Section 4, of the Constitution, “ * * * in respect to congressional elections * * * ” is directed “ * * * to protect such elections-against violence and fraud because they are federal elections so far as federal officials are thereby directly chosen, it is very obvious that, * * * it furnishes no reason for interference at a purely state election." [Emphasis added.] Lackey v. United States, 6 Cir., 107 F. 115, 117-118. This is in agreement with United States v. Classic, 1941, 313 U.S. 299, 61 S.Ct. 1031, 85 L.Ed. 1368 which dealt solely with fraud and violence and not racial denials.
Although what follows in the residue of this note does not relate directly to the Fifteenth Amendment, it is important to bear in mind that the provisions of Section 1 of the Fourteenth do not reach to state elections:
(1)Under the privileges and immunities clause, the “ * * * right to vote for election of state officers * * * is a right or privilege of state citizenship, not a national citizenship which alone is protected by the privileges and immunities clause.” [Emphasis added.] Snowden v. Hughes, 1943, 321 U.S. 1. 64 S.Ct. 397, 88 L.Ed. 497. This case was decided subsequently to United States v. Classic, supra, and Mr. Justice Stone was surely aware of the Classic case, which he had previously written, when he wrote the Hughes decision.
(2) The due process clause does not secure political privileges, Snowden v. Hughes, supra.
(3) Under the equal protection clause for “There is nothing to show that the elections voted at were other than slate elections, * * * ” [Emphasis added.] United States v. Cruikshank, 1876, 92 U.S. 542, 556, 23 L.Ed. 588. “The duty of protecting all its citizens in the enjoyment of- an equality of rights was originnlly assumed by the States and it remains there.” United States v. Harris, 1883, 106 U.S. 629, 1 S.Ct. 601, 27 L.Ed. 290. “The case [United States v. Harris] is clearly distinguished from the case at bar * * * officers, not of the United States, but of the State, and that the laws of the egual protection of which they were alleged to have been deprived, were the laws of the State only.” [Emphasis added.] Logan v. United States, 1892, 144 U.S. 263, 12 S.Ct. 617, 36 L.Ed. 429. “A construction of the equal protection clause * * * would find a violation of federal right in every departure by state officers from state law * * * ” [Emphasis added.] Snowden v. Hughes, supra.

. The limitations placed upon the Fourteenth Amendment likewise restrict the Fifteenth Amendments “The Fifteenth *606Amendment itself has been considered by this court and the same limitations placed upon its provisions.” James v. Bowman, 1903, 190 U.S. 127, 23 S.Ct. 678, 47 L.Ed. 979.

. To the same effect see United States v. Harris, supra, and James V. Bowman, supra.

. This case was decided by Judge Lurton and Judge Day, who later became Justices of the Supreme Court.

. See Report No. 291 of the House of Representatives of the Eighty-fifth Congress, First Session.

. “PART IV — To Provide Means of Further Securing and Protecting The Right To Vote
“Sec. 131. Section 2004 of the Re-cised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 1971), is amended as follows:
“(a) Amend the catch line of said section to read, ‘Voting rights’.
“(b) Designate its present text with the subsection symbol ‘(a)’.
“(c) Add, immediately following the present text, four new subsections to read as follows:
“ ‘ (b) No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose, or of causing such other person to vote for, or not to vote for, any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the Senate, or Member of the House of Representatives, Delegates or Commissioners from the Territories or possessions, at any general, special, or primary election held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any such candidate.
“ ‘(c) Whenever any person has engaged or there are reasonable grounds to believe that any person is about to engage in any act or practice which would deprive any other person of any right or privilege secured by subsection (a) or (b), the Attorney General may institute for the United States, or in the name of the United States, a civil action or other proper proceeding for preventive relief, including an application for a permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order, or other order. In any proceeding hereunder the United States shall be liable for costs the same as a private person.
“‘(d) The district courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction of proceedings instituted pursuant to this section and shall exercise the same without regard to whether the party aggrieved shall have exhausted any administrative or other remedies that may be provided by law.’ ” [Emphasis added.]

. Its brief argues:
“The Civil Rights Act of 1960 adds a new subsection (subsection (e)) to § 1971 of Title 42. The subsection comes into play only upon a finding by the court, in a suit instituted under 42 U.S. C.A. § 1971(c), that any person has been deprived on account of his race or color of any right or privilege secured by subsection (a) and that such deprivation was or is pursuant to a pattern or practice * * *_>>

. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi in United States v. Dogan, 1962, 206 F.Supp. 446, tacitly recognized that subsections (a), (b) and (c) of § 1971 applied solely to voting, and held that the findings provided in subsection (e) had to precede institution of an action under section (c), this being a part of the language of its opinion:
“Plaintiff sought to combine in a single action with a single hearing the action or proceeding contemplated by subsection (c) of § 1971, Title 42 U.S.C. with the proceeding contemplated by subsection (e) of the same statute. It is to be noted, however, that for the proceeding established by subsection (e) there must have been, before it is instituted, a finding by the Court that a person has been deprived on account of race or color of a right or privilege secured by sub-section (a) of this same statute." [Emphasis added in part.]

. See “The Supreme Court in the American System of Government,” Library of Congress catalog card No. 55-9896. In the foreword, it is stated: “Mr. Justice Jackson died suddenly on October 9, 1954. He had worked for several hours on the third Godkin Lecture the day before his death * *