Wolcott v. Holcomb

• Citation: 97 Mich. 361,56 N.W. 837
• Court: Supreme Court of Michigan
• Decision Date: 10 November 1893
• Parties: WOLCOTT, Prosecuting Attorney, v. HOLCOMB, Justice of the Peace.

56 N.W. 837

97 Mich. 361

WOLCOTT, Prosecuting Attorney, v. HOLCOMB, Justice of the Peace.

Supreme Court of Michigan

November 10, 1893

Application by Alfred Wolcott, prosecuting attorney of Kent county, for a writ of mandamus to compel John W. Holcomb, a justice of the peace, to entertain the complaint of Uriah Carpenter against the board of inspectors of election of the first precinct of Grand Rapids township for the refusal of the board to receive his ballot, and to issue a warrant, and to proceed to an examination of the matter complained of. Writ granted. Alfred Wolcott, Pros. Atty., (Moses Taggart, of counsel,) for relator. Henry J. Felker, for respondent.

GRANT J., (after stating the facts.)

The Soldiers' Home is purely eleemosynary in character. To hold otherwise would be contrary to sound legal principle and good sense. The title to the act shows it. It is not the character of the beneficiaries, nor the cause of their inability to earn a living, nor the reason for granting the bounty, which determines whether such an institution is charitable in its character. An institution established and maintained for the support of indigent persons who became blind or deaf in the service of their country or state is as much eleemosynary as one established for the support of those who are born blind or deaf, or who have become so from other causes. All institutions in this state established and maintained at the public expense, for the care, education, and support of the unfortunate, belong to this class of institutions, and are included in the term "asylum," used in the above clause of the constitution. It is immaterial whether they are called "schools," "retreats," "homes," or "asylums." It is equally immaterial what the feeling is which prompts their erection and maintenance. An "asylum" is defined by Webster to be "an institution for the protection or relief of the unfortunate." Such is its meaning as used in the constitution. It follows that one's entry and residence in such an institution partake of the same character as the institution itself, and are likewise eleemosynary in character. One entering them cannot, under the constitution gain or lose his residence. Inmates of the home enter it for one purpose, only, and the constitution solemnly and clearly declares that their status as to residence when they enter must control while they remain there. When Mr. Carpenter entered the home, he was a legal resident of the town of Woodstock. He entered the home upon his own application solely as a beneficiary, and a resident of that township, to accept a well-bestowed and deserving charity. He did not by this act lose his residence there, and his intent is wholly immaterial. To permit his intent to control would result in the practical annulment of this provision of the constitution. The mischief intended to be avoided is as apparent in this case as in any. The inmates of the home own no property, pay no local taxes, do no work in or for the benefit of the municipality, and have no pecuniary interest in its local affairs. In fact, they have no connection with, and stand in no relation to, the local municipal government. They occupy state property, and are exclusively under the control and management of the state.

The provision of our constitution was evidently copied from that of New York, for the two are identical in language. The court of appeals of that state, in an opinion concurred in by the entire court, held that the inmates of the Soldiers' Home of that state were not entitled to vote in the municipality where the home was located. Silvey v. Lindsay, 107 N.Y. 55, 13 N.E. 444. The facts in that case and in this are substantially identical. After stating the facts, the court say: "These reasons satisfied the conscience of the plaintiff, [the inmate,] and enabled him to say he was a resident of Bath, but in reality they bring the case within the prohibition of the constitution. He could not gain a residence by being an inmate, which means nothing more than his presence in the home; and, excluding that, there is nothing in the case to show that a residence in Bath had been acquired. It follows that he had not lost the right to vote in the place of his legal residence,-New York. As to that city, he is to be regarded as temporarily absent, and his residence as a citizen is still therein. We have no doubt that the institution in question is within the purview of the constitutional provision. It is an asylum supported at the public expense, and its members are within the mischief against which that provision is aimed,-the participation of a body of unconcerned men in the control, through the ballot box, of municipal affairs, in whose further conduct they have no interest, and from the mismanagement of which, by the officers their ballots might elect, they sustain no injury." This language is applicable to the present case, and we quote it with approval. But it is insisted that that case still leaves the question open to depend upon the intention of the elector, by reason of the following language: "But the question in each case is still, as it was before the adoption of the constitution, one of domicile or residence, to be decided upon all the circumstances of the case. The provision (article 2, � 3) disqualifies no one; confers no right upon any one. It simply eliminates from those circumstances the fact of presence in the institution named, or included within its terms. It settles the law as to the effect of such presence, and as to which there had before been a difference of opinion, and declares that it does not constitute a test of a right to vote, and is not to be so regarded. The person offering to vote must find the requisite qualifications elsewhere." Mr. Carpenter, as above stated, was a resident and elector in the township of Woodstock, which was then his domicile of citizenship, when he made his application, and was admitted to the home. There was no indication in his application of any intention to change his residence for the purpose of voting, or for any other purpose than that for which the home was established. In his complaint against the election inspectors, he states that he had always lived with his father prior to his death, in 1887; that he was unmarried; that, by the death of his father, the home was broken up; that since that time he had had no home with any relative or friend; and "that he always intended, and in fact made, the township of Grand Rapids, and that part of it in which the Soldiers' Home is located, his home, subsequent to his entry therein." His father was living at the time he entered the home. If he entered as a resident of Woodstock, and that was then his actual residence, can he gain a new residence while kept in this asylum at public expense, except in violation of this plain provision of the above article? Would not this be losing one residence, and gaining another, while kept in an asylum at public expense? In the New York case, the inmate had been in the home for six years, and swore that it was his intention, at all times, to make his residence in said institution, so long as he should be permitted to do so. Is Mr. Carpenter's statement, in fact, any stronger than this? Does he swear to any residence or domicile of citizenship, aside from that which attached to him as an inmate of the home? That case gives us no light upon the requisite qualifications, which must be found elsewhere. It determined the one question before the court, and held that one who had been for six years an inmate, and who swore that he intended to remain there the rest of his life, if permitted to do so, was not an elector in the township where the home was located. If the inmate was a resident of the township where the home is located, at the time of his admission, the requisite qualifications of an elector would be found in that fact, and his right to vote would be undoubted.

We are of the opinion that the terms, "by reason of," and "while," were understood by the framers of the constitution to have a different meaning. In the former case the intention would very largely, if not entirely, govern the question of domicile, while in the latter it would not. It was clearly the intention of the former provision to give the citizen the right, if he chose, to carry his residence with him to the place where he was employed in the service of the United States or of the state, and in that latter case it seems equally clear that it was the intention not to give that right. What object, otherwise, could there have been in the use of these two terms? While the results of the adoption of one construction of the fundamental law of the state are not conclusive, nor of much force, where the construction is otherwise clear, still they are important considerations in determining the intent and purpose of the law. If the construction contended for by the relator be correct, it follows that all the inmates of county almshouses and of prisons and jails are electors, at their option, in the townships and cities where those institutions are located. In the township of Haukin, in Wayne county, where the almshouse of that county is located, there were, in the year 1891, 1,851 male inmates,-more than twice the whole number of voters in the township. Ann. Rep. Supt. Poor, 1891, p. 2. Furthermore, students in all institutions of learning, although they are in attendance there for the sole purpose of obtaining an education, might, at their own will, become electors in the places where such institutions are located. We think the constitution prohibits a change of residence, under such circumstances, and that, when one's presence in any of the institutions named is due to the sole purpose of receiving the benefits conferred,...