Morrison v. Springer

• Decision Date: 10 December 1863
• Citation: 15 Iowa 304
• Parties: MORRISON v. SPRINGER; THE STATE OF IOWA, ex rel. WILSON, v. BURT; THE STATE OF IOWA, ex rel.; O'NEILL v. WATSON
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

15 Iowa 304

MORRISON v. SPRINGER;

THE STATE OF IOWA, ex rel. WILSON, v. BURT;

THE STATE OF IOWA, ex rel.; O'NEILL v. WATSON

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

December 10, 1863

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The first case was appealed from Benton District Court, the second and third from Clayton District Court.

SPRINGER was declared, by the Board of Canvassers, duly elected to the office of Clerk of the District Court of Iowa county, at the October election, 1862. The Hons. James Burt and George Watson were also in like manner declared elected to the offices of District Judge and Attorney in and for the Ninth Judicial District, at the same election. Morrison and the Relators were the respective opposing candidates, and instituted these proceedings to test the right of the several incumbents to said offices. The first case was commenced under chapter 37 of the Revision, which relates to "Contesting elections." The two others were "Informations" in the method provided for in chapter 51 of the Revision.

On the hearing below, the first case was decided in favor of the contestant,--Hon. N. W. ISBELL, Judge of the 8th Judicial District, presiding and delivering the following opinion:

"This cause comes before the court on certiorari directed to the Court for the trial of the contested clerkship of Iowa County between the parties.

"The incumbent received the greater number of votes, including those cast in the military camps out of the State, under the act of September 11th, 1862; and the contestant the greater number, provided those out of the State are to be rejected.

"Minor questions are raised as to the admissibility of testimony, and the like ; but the vital question is, as to the constitutionality of the act authorizing soldiers to vote out of the State.

"A wide field has been taken in argument, but we see no force in any of the objections to the constitutionality of the act except this, whether our Constitution requires a personal presence of the voter within the County of his residence for the last sixty days in order to vote.

"We think the whole question narrowed down to this, and the only clause of the Constitution bearing upon it, except by remote inference, is that contained in Art. 2, Sec. 1, which provides that every white male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of this State six months next preceding the election, and of the County in which he claims his vote sixty days, shall be entitled to vote at all elections which now or hereafter may be authorized by law."

"That the affirmative description of a voter contained in this clause implies a negative as to all not coming within it we have no doubt. Otherwise the Legislature could have struck out the word "white" without a submission to the people.

"But it is claimed, on the part of the incumbent, that the leading idea and object of this section is to define who shall enjoy the right of suffrage, and not where it shall be exercised and that the words "of the county in which he claims his vote," must be taken in subordination to the leading idea, and held to qualify residence only, and not mark a distinctive feature in the description. And it is insisted that to construe these words any other way would be to deprive the Legislature from affixing a township residence, or prevent a person coming within the description thus understood from voting at any township, school district or corporate election in the County he might choose, only so that the election was authorized by law.

"We have no doubt the leading object of this clause is to define who shall be entitled to vote. But we have as little doubt that to entitle a person to vote he must fill the description in every material particular.

"We must not confound the voter with the person of the voter. A voter as defined by the clause represents a complex idea, made up of several less complex. The word combines the idea of a white person--a male of the age of twenty-one years--a citizen of the United States--a resident of the State of Iowa for six months next preceding the election, and a resident of the county in which he claims his vote sixty days.

"Is not the claiming his vote in the county of his residence as essential to the perfect idea of a voter as that he be white? True, the incidents of citizenship, residence in the county, and the claiming his vote therein, do not inhere in the person of the voter, as do those of age, sex and color. But do they not equally inhere in the voter by force of the constitutional description.

"While the primary or leading object of the section may be to define who shall enjoy the right of suffrage, instead of where he shall exercise the right, it is to our mind clear that in describing the voter, an incident is attached to him, which as necessarily limits the place of enjoyment of the right to the county of his residence (that is, requiring him to claim his vote there), as though it had been the primary object of the section to determine where the right should be exercised. If this is so, it is of little consequence whether the end is attained by attaching such incident to the description of the voter, or whether it be effected by a separate title, headed--"Where the right of suffrage shall be exercised," and a separate section declaring--"Any person entitled to vote shall claim his vote in the county of his residence for the last sixty days."

"We conclude that the limiting the field for the exercise of the right to the county in which it is claimed, is a material feature of the description of a voter, by the clause. We can but believe the claim here mentioned is an actual personal claim in contradistinction to an ideal, or (if such a thing is possible) legal claim.

"Nor is the difficulty removed by saying, if the full weight is given to the phrase it can only mean that a voter shall not vote in the State in a different county from his residence. As for example, a resident in Linn county shall not vote in Benton. For if it means this, it cannot well be held that the framers of the Constitution intended to limit voting to the county of the residence of the voter within the State, and leave an unlimited right outside the State, to be provided for by the Legislature. But the inference would rather be, that they did not consider such claim possible and did not therefore provide for it ; or that having defined a particular limit, within which he should claim his vote, no other need be defined to make it certain.

"If the power to confer the right is doubtful, then it is proper to draw arguments from inconvenience to determine what the framers of the Constitution intended by language used which appears to bear against the right. But into this field of argument we do not propose to enter.

"To hold that the clause limits the right to vote to the county in which the right is claimed, does no violence to the language used. To hold otherwise, argues out of the Constitution a plainly written phrase.

"Nor is this phrase without meaning. It is easy to say, that the framers of the Constitution were only attempting to define a voter in the abstract. But it is hard to believe that they intended to frame a Constitution for an elective government, and no where in it, in any manner attempt to define where the right of an elector should be exercised. If we give to this clause its natural (and we think necessary) meaning, this is clearly and succinctly done. If the meaning is as contended for, the whole subject of where the elector shall exercise his right is left open to legislation, and inasmuch as legislators are the judges of the expediency of a law where they have the power to enact it, there is no limit to the lengths they may go in this direction.

"Had the plain men of the country (and they are they who adopted it), been told that under this clause an election might be held in Missouri or Tennessee, we can but believe that, from the plain reading of the clause, they would have regarded the objection captious. And it is such a construction, if we can arrive at it, as we believe those adopting it put upon it when they accepted it as their fundamental law, that we are bound to give to it, rather than one which may be sustained only by the refinements of learning.

"Such men had been accustomed to see a man claim his vote by presenting himself at the poll and offering his ballot, to be received and counted by the judges of an election, and when they read in the draft of the Constitution, in addition to his other qualifications, that he must be a resident "of the county in which he claims his vote," the idea of his claiming in any other county, or in any other manner, than that to which they had been accustomed, would never enter their minds. They would not suppose that under the phrase, by a fiction of law, a man could be held as claiming his vote in Iowa county, while he was presenting it in Tennessee. Though familiar with the idea that a man may be a resident of a county without being all the while in person there, they were not with the idea that a man might claim his vote in a county and State where he was not.

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