Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/266

 254 FEDBBAL EEPORTEB. �that fact, he becomes a qualified voter. If it is paid for liim by another, not in the way of a bribe, and without any un- derstanding, express or implied, that he is to vote for a par- ticular candidate, then the payment is legal and in every way proper. If it is paid as a bribe, or with an understand- ing, express or implied, that he is to vote for a particular candidate, then he commits an offence punishable by a $20 fine, for which he may be prosecuted; and that is the only penalty which the law visits upon the act : it does not inval- idate the vote or re-impQge the disqualification of the voter. �And 80, if the taxes of these men had been paid, whether in violation of law or not in violation of law, the right to vote attached to them on such payment of the tax, and their votes should of right have been received. Judges of election have nothing to do with penal laws. They are not at liber ty to suspect, as to a citizen who pleads that his tax has been paid, that another person has paid it for him ; to try him summarily under a penal statute, which condemns him only in a penalty of a $20 fine, and to eonvict and sentence him to the different penalty of being disqualified from voting ; acting in the space of five minutes as prosecutor, judge, and jury. This would be a revival of star-chamber methods, and is re- pugnant to ail our American ideas of free government and civil liberty. �I therefore instruct you, gentlemen, that these receipts were sufficient evidence of the payment of the taxes of the men named in them ; that these men became thereby qual- ified to vote on the receipts, whether the law of 1878 had been violated or not ; and that, even if the law had in fact been violated, such violation only subjected the parties to the offence to a fine of $20, triable and punishable by a court of justice, and not to disfranchisement by these judges of election ; for the violation did not re-impose the disqualification which )iad existed before the tax had been paid. �I have thus disposed of the principal question in this case, to-wit, whether the persons named in the indictment as hav- ing offered to vote were qualified voters. They were qualified ��� �