Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/21

 APPOINTMENT OV SUPERVIS0B8 OF ELECTION. 13 �site qualification of assessment, an omission from which de- prives one entitled to be on it of the right of voting. It may not be, in the estimation of counsel, a list of voters, but it bas this great signifieancy of beiug such a list that any man not found upon it is deprived of his right to vote. �Thus these lists bave a dual aspect, and are as much a list of voters as of assessed persons. This supposed difficulty does not apply to the lists of voters made out by the clerks of the peace, �The learned attorney general, whose opinion is entitled to great respect by reason of his officiai position and well known ability as a lawyer, has insisted that it would be impossible to enforce the criminal proceedings of the sections of the United States Eevised Statutes regarding obstruction or hin- drance of supervisors so appointed ; holding that no' indiet- ment to cover such an oiïencs could be drawn because the warrant claimed for the authority of these supervisors cannot be found in the United States Statutes. With ail respect to the learned attorney general, this is begging the whole ques- tion. If there is substantially a registration of voters in this state within the true meaning and intent of the act of con- gress, as we bave already indicated there is, there wonld be no difficulty in framing an indictment against any state officer charged with the duties of registration of voters, either under the section in question or under section 2005, for any obstruc- tion or hindrance to supervisors in the performance of the duties imposed oh them by congress. �I have thus at some length argued the novel and interest- ing questions which have been presented for my solution. I may have erred in the conclusion at which I have arrived. If I entertained doubts of the correctness of my conclusion which were not of the gravest character, I should feel bound to give the benefit of those doubts in favor of that construc- tion which was in good faith intended to purify and protect the elective franchise rather than that which wbuld curtail and diminish the opportunïty of doing the same. If I am right in my conclusion I wouïd do a great wrong in not mak- iug these appointments, while, if I err in my le^al judgment, ��� �