Fitzgerald v. Green
| Decision Date | 24 March 1890 |
| Citation | 10 S.Ct. 586,33 L.Ed. 951,134 U.S. 377 |
| Parties | FITZGERALD v. GREEN |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
R. A. Ayers and J. Randolph Tucker, for appellant.
Mr. Justice GRAY, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court.
In this case, as in Loney's Case, ante, 584, (just decided,) the question presented is whether the courts of the state of Virginia had jurisdiction of the charge against the prisoner. But that is the only respect in which the two cases have any resemblance. By the constitution of the United States, the electors for president and vicepresident in each state are appointed by the state in such manner as its legislature may direct; their number is equal to the whole number of senators and represen tatives to which the state is entitled in congress; no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector; and the electors meet and vote within the state, and thence certify and transmit their votes to the seat of government of the United States. The only rights and duties, expressly vested by the constitution in the national government, with regard to the appointment or the votes of presidential electors, are by those provisions which authorize congress to determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes, and which direct that the certificates of their votes shall be opened by the president of the senate in the presence of the w o houses of congress, and the votes shall then be counted. Const. art. 2, § 1; Amend. art. 12. The sole function of the presidential electors is to cast, certify, and transmit the vote of the state for president and vice-president of the nation. Although the electors are appointed and act under and pursuant to the constitution of the United States, they are no more officers or agents of the United States than are the members of the state legislatures when acting as electors of federal senators, or the people of the states when acting as electors of representatives in congress. Const. art. 1, §§ 2, 3. In accord with the provisions of the constitution, congress has determined the time as of which the humber of electors shall be ascertained, and the days on which they shall be appointed and shall meet and vote in the states, and on which their votes shall be counted in congress; has provided for the filling by each state, in such manner as its legislature may prescribe, of vacancies in its college of...
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...part on the assumption that the selection of presidential electors is a 'federal' election, the Court held in In re Green, 134 U.S. 377, 379, 10 S.Ct. 586, 587, 33 L.Ed. 951 (1890), and repeated in Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214, 224—225, 72 S.Ct. 654, 659—660, 96 L.Ed. 894 (1952), that preside......
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... ... 731, 8 S.Ct. 1263; Cross v. North Carolina, 132 U.S ... 131, 10 S.Ct. 47; and In re Green, 134 U.S. 377, 10 ... S.Ct. 586. Those cases show that there need not necessarily ... be a conflict of jurisdiction ... This ... ...
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...been held that in the absence of direct election, a Presidential elector is a state officer, not a federal one. In re Green, 134 U.S. 377, 379, 10 S.Ct. 586, 33 L.Ed. 951 (1890). More recently, in the case of Burroughs and Cannon v. United States, 290 U.S. 534, 54 S.Ct. 287, 78 L.Ed. 484 (1......
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...of the term “State officer”—a term analogous to “state ... office”—to extend beyond its literal meaning. Cf. In re Green, 134 U.S. 377, 379, 10 S.Ct. 586, 33 L.Ed. 951 (1890) (“Although [presidential] electors are appointed and act under and pursuant to the Constitution of the United States......
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...the Court in Burroughs v. United States: While presidential electors are not officers or agents of the federal government (In re Green, 134 U.S. 377, 379), they exercise federal functions under, and discharge duties in virtue of authority conferred by, the Constitution of the United States.......