11 F. Cas. 649 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Arkansas | 1873
Has the circuit court of the United States jurisdiction of the case made by the bill? This question does not relate to the form of the action merely, but the demurrer challenges the jurisdiction of the court to make any adjudication in any form of action upon the facts stated in the bill. It is not to be disguised that this is in effect a proceeding to contest in a United States court the title to a state office. And if this court has jurisdiction of this case, on the facts stated in the bill, then it has jurisdiction in all cases of contested elections, and that jurisdiction can be invoked to try every case involving a dispute as to which of two persons has been elected to any office, from the lowest township officer to the chief magistrate of the state. If such unqualified jurisdiction in this class of cases has been conferred, the court will not hesitate to assume and exercise it, however laborious and delicate it may be; but if it has not been expressly conferred by act of congress, it can not be assumed. On a question of jurisdiction the court has no discretion; if the suitor brings his case within the jurisdiction of the court he must be heard, and if his case is not within the jurisdiction of the court, he can not be heard, no matter what the merits of his case may be.
The question in the case before the court is not whether, under the recent amendment to the constitution, congress might not confer, without any qualification or limitation, jurisdiction on the circuit courts of the United
It is plain the civil rights bill does not confer jurisdiction on this court upon the case made by the complainant’s bill. It may be conceded that the terms of that act are broad enough to embrace all persons without regard to their descent or color, but it is not pretended that the complainant in this case does not enjoy the “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person or property,” enjoyed by any other citizen; nor is it claimed that he is “denied or cannot enforce in the courts of judicial tribunals of the state any of the rights secured to him” by that act. The fifteenth, article of amendment to the constitution of the United States, declares “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any state, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. The congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Congress has legislated under, this article, and that legislation is found in the enforcement act. The first sec
In the argument reference was made to the case of Kellogg v. Warmouth [Case No. 7,667], pending in the United States circuit court for the district of Louisiana. The bill in that case is drawn with special reference to this twenty-third section, and all the necessary averments made-to bring the case literally within its terms. The bill in that case charges expressly that the qualified voters who offered to vote, and whose votes were rejected, “were refused the right to vote on account of their race, color and previous condition of servitude.” And these averments are repeated in reference to every fraudulent and illegal act charged in the bill, and are assigned and relied on as the sole ground for all the relief sought and prayed for by the bill. And from the newspaper report of that case it appeal’s that the leading counsel for the complainant (Mr. Beckwith) rested the jurisdiction on the twenty-third section of the act and these averments in the bill, and that the court grounded, as indeed it must have done, its judgment-on the question of jurisdiction on this section and these allegations in the bill. Saying nothing of the form of the proceeding and the particular relief sought and granted in that case, it is clear that the facts stated in the bill, brought the case exactly and literally under the twenty-third section. This the counsel for complainant in the argument broadly conceded had not been done in this case, because the complainant could not conscientiously make the averments required by that section to confer jurisdiction. In support of the jurisdiction, one of the counsel for complainant, in the argument, read from speeches made by senators in congress, while the enforcement act was pending before that body. An examination of the official report of the proceedings of congress, discloses the fact that the particular section of the bill to which those speeches related, was afterwards stricken out, and is not now found in the act. Indeed, if anything was wanting to show that congress never designed to confer on the courts of the United States jurisdiction in this class of cases, beyond the single case covered by the twenty-third section, it would be found in the legislative history of this measure. See Cong. Globe (2d Sess., 41st Cong.) p. 3561, where the principle of giving jurisdiction to United States courts in this class of cases is first broached in section 5 of the bill
Both houses of congress approved and assented to the views of the committee by adopting their report. The text of the act will admit of no other or different interpretation than that given to it by this committee. It is not pretended that the opinions of individual legislators can be received to alter the text or control the interpretation of an act of congress; but where, as in this case, an act has been carefully considered and revised by a conference committee, their opinions carefully and deliberately expressed, when they accord with the plain text of the act, show very conclusively that congress was not mistaken as to the legal effect of the language of the act, and did not intend that it should receive an interpretation different from the one plainly expressed.
It is suggested that although the court may not have jurisdiction of the principal subject matter, it may yet have jurisdiction to grant the auxiliary and ancillary relief prayed for in the bill. In answer to this suggestion, it ■is enough to say that there is no act of congress conferring jurisdiction to grant such auxiliary and ancillary relief, and the reasoning that excludes the jurisdiction of the court over the principal subject matter of the suit applies with equal force to the ancillary and auxiliary relief sought The complainant is clearly mistaken in supposing the supervisors of election appointed in this state, under the act of congress approved June 10, 1872 (17 Stat. 348, 349), have any authority to supervise or report upon the election of state officers. No return or report they might make in reference to the election of any state officer could have any official sanction, or be received as evidence in this or any other court. The court having no jurisdiction on the case made by the bill to determine in any form of action the right of complainant to the office in dispute, it is needless to inquire whether a bill in chancery will lie in such case, or whether the remedy must be by quo war-ranto. And for the same reason it is unnecessary to inquire whether the court, supposing it to have jui-isdiction, could grant the several injunctions and restraining orders prayed for in the bill. The complainant must, therefore, be remitted to the justice of' his own state tribunals, where from the foundation of the government down to the present time, the exclusive jurisdiction over cases-of contested election for state offices has been vested and still remains, except where the case turns solely on the single fact specified in the twenty-third section. The demurrer to the bill is well taken, and the injunctions and other extraordinary writs and relief prayed for are refused, with leave to complainant to have a reargument upon the demurrer, before a full bench at the next term. Demurrer sustained.