Pope v. Williams

193 U.S. 621 (1904)

POPE
v.
WILLIAMS.

No. 503.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued March 8, 9, 1904. Decided April 4, 1904. ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF MARYLAND.

Mr. William H. Pope, plaintiff in error, pro se:

Mr. John Prentiss Poe, with whom Mr. Bowie F. Waters was on the brief, for defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM, after making the above statement of facts, delivered the opinion of the court.

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 above statement of facts, and are substantially reproduced in his assignment of errors.

We are of opinion that the statute does not violate any Federal right of the plaintiff in error which he seeks to assert in this proceeding. The statute, so far as it concerns him and the right which he urges, is one making regulations and conditions for the registry of persons for the purpose of voting. It was only for the purpose of thereafter voting that the plaintiff in error sought to be registered, and it was the denial of that right only which he can now review. His application for registry as a voter was denied by the board of registry solely because of his failure to comply with the statute. Whatever other right he may have as a citizen of Maryland by reason of his removal there with an intent to become such citizen, is not now in question. So far as appears no other right, if any he may have, has been infringed by the statute. The simple matter to be herein determined is whether, with reference to the exercise of the privilege of voting in Maryland, the legislature of that State had the legal right to provide that a person coming into the State to reside should make the declaration of intent a year before he should have the right to be registered as a voter of the State.

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. 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, 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, subject to the conditions of the Federal Constitution, already stated; although it may be observed that the right to vote for a member of Congress is not derived exclusively from the state law. See Federal Constitution, Art. 1, sec. 2; Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U.S. 58. But the elector must be one entitled to vote under the state statute. (Id., Id.) See also Swafford v. Templeton, 185 U.S. 487, 491. In this case no question arises as to the right to vote for electors of President and Vice President, and no decision is made thereon. The question whether the conditions prescribed by the State might be regarded by others as reasonable or unreasonable is not a Federal one. We do not wish to be understood, however, as intimating that the condition in this state is unreasonable or in any way improper.

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 statute, so far as it provides conditions precedent to the exercise of the elective franchise within the State, by persons coming therein to reside, (and that is as far as it is necessary to consider it in this case,) is neither an unlawful discrimination against any one in the situation of the plaintiff in error nor does it deny to him the equal protection of the laws, nor is it repugnant to any fundamental or inalienable rights of citizens of the United States, nor a violation of any implied guaranties of the Federal Constitution. The right of a State to legislate upon the subject of the elective franchise as to it may seem good, subject to the conditions already stated, being, as we believe, unassailable, we think it plain that the statute in question violates no right protected by the Federal Constitution.

The reasons which may have impelled the state legislature to enact the statute in question were matters entirely for its consideration, and this court has no concern with them.

It is unnecessary in this case to assert that under no conceivable state of facts could a state statute in regard to voting be regarded as an infringement upon or a discrimination against the individual rights of a citizen of the United States removing into the State and excluded from voting therein by state legislation. The question might arise, if an exclusion from the privilege of voting were founded upon the particular State from which the person came, excluding from that privilege, for instance, a citizen of the United States coming from Georgia and allowing it to a citizen of the United States coming from New York or any other State. In such case an argument might be urged that, under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution, the citizen from Georgia was by the state statute deprived of the equal protection of the laws. Other extreme cases might be suggested. We neither assert nor deny that in the case supposed the claim would be well founded that a Federal right of a citizen of the United States was violated by such legislation, for the question does not arise herein. We do, however, hold that there is nothing in the statute in question which violates the Federal rights of the plaintiff in error by virtue of the provision for making a declaration of his intention to become a citizen before he can have the right to be registered as a voter and to vote in the State.

The plaintiff in error has no ground for complaint in regard to the decision of the courts below, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals of Maryland is, therefore,

Affirmed.