Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/264

 252 FEDERAL REPOfiTEB. �is the wording of the statute, I instruct yon that the law dis- dains to punish a man who innocently or ignorantly or in good. faith oommita an unlawful act, and therefore thia indictment, though it need not necessarily have done so, charges that the neglect and refusai to perform their duty by these defendants was "unlawful." In order to a conviction in this case I instruct you, therefore, that the proseeution must not only have proved a neglect and refusai by these defendants to perform the duty required of them by law, but that the neglect and refusai were coupled with some wrongful purpose, motive, or intention on their part. �The principal question in the present case, I repeat, is whether the 13 persons who offered to vote on the auditor's receipts, a sample of which is given above, were entitled to vote. It is conceded that in ail other respects these persons (who were ail eolored) were qualified voters. It is also con- ceded that these receipts are genuine documents; that is to say, they are veritably what they purport to be, — receipts is- suing from the "office of the auditor of public accounts" of the "commonwealth of Virginia," at Kichmond. Their gen- uineness was not disputed, and could not have been disputed in any part of the territory of Virginia. The only point made by the judges of election was that the receipt was signed by a clerk of the auditor's office, and not by the auditor himself. They held that section i of chapter 43 of the Code of Vir- ginia, in providing that on the treasurer's receipt for money paid into bank being delivered to the auditor the latter officer shall "grant a receipt therefor," required that this receipt for a receipt should be signed by the auditor himself. �When tbis question was submitted to me by the grand jury which found this indictment, I answered that the genuineness of this receipt as a document issuing from the auditor's office, not being disputed, its sufficiency must be presumed nntil the contrary is shown. This I did, on the well-known maxim of law, omnia prœsumunter rite et solemniter esse aeta; which means that ail officiai acts of officers done under their officiai oaths, in the line of their officiai duty, must be pre- sumed to have been rightly and legally done, in due form, ��� �