until the contrary is shown. That such acts were rightly done must be taken for granted, from the necessity of the case, else infinite inconvenience, obstruction, and confusion would take place, and the affairs of society could not go on. I also asked the grand jury to observe that the language of the Code in respect to the auditor was not that he shall sign and grant a receipt for the treasurer's receipt, but simply that he shall grant such receipt. The law seemed to contemplate that the pressure of labor upon the auditor's office might be so great at times as to render it inconvenient, and sometimes impossible, for him to sign all receipts with his own sign-manual, and in that view seems to have employed the word "grant" instead of the words "sign and grant. Besides, a mere receipt for a receipt is not so important an instrument but that the duty of signing it may very safely be delegated to a clerk.

Another objection of the defendants to receiving the votes of the persons holding these receipts was founded on the clause of the recent amendment to the state constitution declaring that the citizen, in order to be entitled to vote, shall, among other things, "have paid to the state, before the day of election, the capitation tax required by law for the preceding year;" and evidence was offered to show that the judges surmised, inferred, or supposed that these persons had not paid their taxes in person, but that some one else had paid them in their stead; and this was supplemented with still other evidence, proving it to have been the opinion of these defendants that taxes so paid did not remove the disqualification from the persons who were offering to vote.

My instruction to you, gentlemen, on this whole set of opinions set up for these defendants, is that each of the three grounds of objection to the votes in question is insufficient. The clause in the constitution is one of that class of clauses which all legal and political maxims of construction require to be liberally interpreted and applied. If a citizen's tax has been paid, and he is otherwise qualified, then, by

that fact, he becomes a qualified voter. If it is paid for him by another, not in the way of a bribe, and without any understanding, 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 understanding, 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 invalidate the vote or re-impose the disqualification of the voter.

And so, 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 liberty 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 convict 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 repugnant to all 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 qualified 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 had 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

voters under the law of the land, and in rejecting their votes the defendants did "neglect and refuse to perform a duty” required of them by the laws of Virginia and the United States, and they are technically guilty of the offence charged in the indictment. It only remains for me to say something on the question whether the defendants neglected and refused to do their duty in the premises with wrongful motive or intent.

You can only judge of intention by words and acts. Men were not made with windows in their breasts through which we might read the motives of their conduct. We can discover intentions only from words and acts. It is shown that the judges acted upon the opinion in writing of the judge of the corporation court of Manchester, an officer upon whom the laws of the state devolve the ministerial, but not judicial, duty of appointing judges of election. It is certainly natural for conscientious men to consult the opinions of lawyers in whose learning and judgment they have confidence. But judges of election ought as certainly to be cautious how they accept opinions not given under the sanction of an oath or of official responsibility, as the basis of their action in so grave a matter as the disfranchisement of citizens from the privilege of voting. It is not a part of the duty devolved by law upon judges of courts of justice to give opinions on questions of law to other than grand juries, or persons or bodies having like relations to their courts. If given, such opinions are not official, have not the sanction of an official oath, and carry no other authority than the moral weight of the authors of them. The defendants in this case, as judges of election, would have had a right to call upon the attorney general of the state or the commonwealth's attorney of their corporation. for his opinion on questions arising before them; and such an opinion would have come to them under the sanction of the official oath; but even with such sanction it would not have been binding upon these judges of election. They are officers who must act upon their oaths, their consciences, and their own responsibility to the law. If they "neglect and refuse to perform their duty" with wrongful intent, it is a

poor and useless shift to attempt to shelter themselves behind the opinions, whether official or unofficial, of lawyers who advised them to do so.

Still, the fact that these defendants did seek and accept legal advice is an indication of good faith, and is a fact proper to be considered, even if the advice which they took mislead them into the commission of a penal offence.

With these remarks I will leave the jury to deal themselves with the question whether the rejection of the votes under consideration was done in good faith or with wrongful intent, and will only remark that if that question is left in doubt by the evidence, the defendants are entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

IN RE CAMILLE.

(Circuit Court, D. Oregon. November 2, 1880.)

1. NATURALIZATION-WHITE PERSON.

A person of half white and half Indian blood is not a "white person," within the meaning of this phrase as used in the naturalization laws, and therefore he is not entitled to be admitted to citizenship thereunder.

Petition to be Admitted to Citizenship.

DEADY, D. J. Frank Camille petitions to be admitted to become a citizen of the United States, under section 2167 of the Revised Statutes, as an alien who has resided in the United States the three years next preceding his arriving at the age of 21 years, and without having made the declaration of his intentions in that respect required in the first condition of section 2165 of the Revised Statutes.

From the evidence it appears that the applicant was born at Kamloops, in British Columbia, in 1847, and at the age of 17 came to Oregon, where he has ever since resided, and that he is otherwise entitled to admission, if he is a "white person," within the meaning of that phrase as used in section 2167 of the Revised Statutes, as amended by the act of Feb

ruary 18, 1875, (18 St. 318.) His father was a white Canadian, and his mother an Indian woman of British Columbia, and he is, therefore, of half Indian blood.

In re Ah Yup, 5 Sawy. 155, it was held by Mr. Justice Sawyer that the words "white person," as used in the naturalization laws, mean a person of the Caucasian race, and do not include one who belongs to the Mongolian race. In the course of the opinion he says: "Words in a statute, other than technical terms, should be taken in their ordinary sense. The words 'white person,' as well argued by petitioner's counsel, taken in a strictly literal sense, constitute a very indefinite description of a class of persons, where none can be said to be literally white, and those called white may be found of every shade from the lightest blonde to the most swarthy brunette. But these words in this country, at least, have undoubtedly acquired a well-settled meaning in common popular speech, and they are constantly used in the literature of the country, as well as in common parlance. As ordinarily used everywhere in the United States, one would scarcely fail to understand that the party employing the words white person' would intend a person of the Caucasian race."

From the same reasons it appears that the words "white person" do not, and were not intended to, include the red race of America.

Chancellor Kent, in considering this subject, (2 Com. 72,) says that "it may well be doubted" whether "the copper-colored natives of America, or the yellow or tawney races of the Asiatic," "are white persons' within the purview of the law."

In all classifications of mankind hitherto, color has been a controlling circumstance, and for that reason Indians have never, ethnologically, been considered white persons, or included in any such designation.

From the first our naturalization laws only applied to the people who had settled the country-the Europeans or white race and so they remained until in 1870, (16 Stat. 256; § 2169 Rev. St.,) when, under the pro-negro feeling, generated and inflamed by the war with the southern states, and its political consequences, congress was driven at once to the other v.6,no.3-17