William Pope v. John Williams
| Decision Date | 04 April 1904 |
| Docket Number | No. 7,No. 503,7,503 |
| Parties | WILLIAM H. POPE, Plff. in Err. , v. JOHN M. C. WILLIAMS and John W. Harper, Officers of Registration, Constituting the Board of Registry for Election Districtof Montgomery County, Maryland |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This is a writ of error to the court of appeals of the state of Maryland, to review its judgment affirming that of the circuit court for Montgomery county, which affirmed the proceedings of the board of registry of election district No. 7 of that county refusing to register petitioner as a legal voter on the ground of his noncompliance with the Maryland law making it necessary for a person coming into the state, with the intention of residing therein, to register his name with the clerk of the circuit court of the proper county, and thereby to indicate the intent of such person to become a citizen and resident of the state.
The act in question was passed March 29, 1902, as chapter 133 of the laws of that year, and as an amendment and supplement to the Public General Laws of the State, title Elections, subtitle Registration, as § 25b, and it is reproduced in the margin.
Plaintiff in error on September 29, 1903, presented his ap- plication to the board of registry of election district No. 7, Montgomery county, Maryland, then sitting at a place within such district, to be registered and entered as a qualified voter on the registry of voters of that election district, which application the board refused and declined to comply with, for the sole reason that he had not complied with this law of Maryland. Thereafter the plaintiff presented a sworn petition to the circuit court for Montgomery county, in the state of Maryland, praying that court to enter an order to revise the action of the board of registry, and to order and direct that the name of the petitioner should be entered as a qualified voter on the registry of voters of the election district already named. In that sworn petition he alleged that he had, on June 7, 1902, with his wife and child, removed from the city of Washington, District of Columbia, into Montgomery county, in the state of Maryland, 'having then had, and ever since and now having, the intention of making the state of Maryland the permanent domicil of himself and his family, and of becoming a citizen of said state; and ever since said June 7, 1902, petitioner has resided in the subdivision of Otterbourne, near Chevy Chase, in said Montgomery county, and in the seventh election district of said county.'
The petitioner further showed in his petition that he had made application to the proper board of registry in the election district mentioned, and the board had refused to enter his name as a qualified voter on the ground already stated, of noncompliance with the Maryland statute.
The petitioner admitted
The petitioner then asserts and sets forth in his petition several grounds which, as he therein alleges, render the state law a violation of the Constitution of the State of Maryland, and he also specially sets up and claims that the law is a violation of the Constitution of the United States in the particulars named by him, and which are as follows:
'Said law is repugnant to that portion of § 1 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which declares that, 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,' because by said law it is in effect ordained that male citizens of the United States of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, removing into the state of Maryland after March 29, 1902, with the intention of making said state their permanent domicil, shall not be treated as citizens or residents of Maryland, or given the rights and privileges of citizens of Maryland, until they have been naturalized in the mode prescribed by said law.
'Said law is also repugnant to that portion of § 1 of said 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which prohibits a state from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, because said law operates an unjust and unreasonable discrimination against citizens of the United States coming into the state of Maryland to permanently reside therein after March 29, 1902, who may desire to become qualified voters therein.
'Said law is also repugnant to the general spirit of the Constitution of the United States and the fundamental rights of citizens of the United States, which deny to a state the power to attach unreasonable or burdensome conditions to the free movement of citizens of the United States out of, into, and settlement within, the confines of any state, district, or territory within the United States.'
To this petition there was a general demurrer, which was sustained by the court, which thereupon entered judgment dismissing the petition, with costs to the defendants.
Mr. William H. Pope in propria persona for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 625-627 intentionally omitted] Messrs. John Prentiss Poe and Bowie F. Waters for defendants in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 627-631 intentionally omitted] Statement by Mr. Justice Peckham:
This is not a case of a statute of the state having been passed subsequently to the time when the individual had removed from another state or from a territory or from the District of Columbia into the state of Maryland. There is, therefore, no alteration of any possible rights which the plaintiff in error might have already acquired and which he might claim were taken from him by the passage of such statute. On the contrary, this statute took effect on March 29, 1902, more than two months prior to the removal of the plaintiff in error from Washington in the District of Columbia to Montgomery county, within the state of Maryland. The objections of a Federal nature which are made by the plaintiff in error to the validity of the statute are set out in his petition, and are also contained in the...
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