Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/12

4 counties of the state for the use of the inspectors of election, is not warranted by law.

As this law, leaving out the question of constitutionality, is meant to be fair and impartial in its operation, and as its object and purpose is the protection to each citizen of the right of the elective franchise, both by securing his own vote and preventing the illegal votes of others, the construction of the act should be a liberal one, and such as to carry into effect the manifest intention of the framers of the law. And, while the fact of penalties attached to the violation of the law should, as in every case demanding serious investigation, make more imperative the necessity for the judge to give a careful investigation to the case, I know of no rule of interpretation arising from that fact which should require a narrow and technical construction to such a statute — a statute which is eminently an enabling one.

We are then brought to the consideration of the question, what was the manifest intention of congress in the use of the words "registration of voters?"

It will hardly be denied that, if these lists made by the assessors and the levy courts are lists of such a character that to be placed on them is a prerequisite to the right to vote, the guarding and scrutinizing such lists give the means of remedying the evil which congress designed to be remedied. And if it is a sound rule of interpretation or construction of a law that such a construction or interpretation should be given as will remove the evil sought to be removed, and protect the rights sought to be protected, then, unless there is something on the face of the acts of congress which in terms denies the applicability of the registration of voters therein named to the assessment lists under the laws of Delaware, an adherence to this rule would compel the court to give to such a System the substantial character of a registration of voters.

It is admitted in argument that if there was a system of registration of voters eo nomine, in this state, then the statute would apply, and the supervisors could guard and scrutinize such lists.