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the temptation of State officials to nullify the will of the people thereof by dishonest count and certification.

How are electors created?

By each of the States. They are appointed.

Have State legislatures absolute control as to the manner?

Their control is absolute. South Carolina constituted her legislature her electoral agent. The State legislatures can order that electors, who shall tally with the number of Representatives in Congress, shall be appointed by congressional districts, and that the States shall be divided into two districts for the appointment of electors-atlarge, who tally in number with the two Senators. A writer thus summarizes the free action of Maryland :

"In 1800 Maryland had eight Representatives in Congress, and, of course, was entitled to ten electors. The act of the legislature divided the State into ten districts, which could not be the same as the eight congressional districts, and provided that the voters of each of these districts should choose a presidential elector. In this case no elector was appointed by the State at large. From 1804 to 1828 Maryland was entitled to

eleven electors, and by the act of 1802 the State was divided into nine districts, seven of them choosing one elector each, and two of them two electors each. Still more curious was the election of 1832, in which, by an act of the previous year, the State was divided into four districts, of which one-the Eastern Shore, together with Hartford County was empowered to choose three electors; another-Baltimore City-two; a third-Baltimore County-two; and the rest of the Western Shore, as the fourth, four-thus making up the eleven presidential electors to which the State was entitled.”

Investigations into the electoral practices at different periods of North Carolina, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Michigan, and other States, will show that each State is an absolute power, and made so by these words of the Constitution (Art. II., sec. 1): "Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress."

Can a State repel invasion?

Yes; if "actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay." (Art. I., sec. 10.)

The United States cannot grant to a foreign power, as Mexico, for example, the privilege of entering Texas, or other State on the border, in time of peace, with armed and uniformed troops. The Governor of such State could regard such entry as invasion, and repel it. "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence." (Art. IV., sec. 4.)

What is domestic violence?

Armed insurrection within a State against its government and its laws; also, armed invasion of a State by a sister State.

What authorizes a call for the intervention of the United States?

When the civil power of a State is exhausted. The same rule applies to a State when the local military are powerless to execute the laws. In either event the Federal marshals and military are only used as subordinate aids to secure peace as an armed posse comitatus under State officials.

Can United States troops otherwise interfere? The President may send troops to their reser

vations through or within the States, to protect forts, arsenals, custom-houses, post-offices, but not to protect private property or the property of corporations. The government of the United States cannot run railroads or steamboats

engaged in ordinary traffic. The government may select post-roads, but, if railroad routes, it cannot constitutionally order United States troops to protect trains belonging to corporations, but must hold the corporations carrying the mails responsible for non-delivery during strikes originating in quarrels between employees and employTo do otherwise is to attack the fundamental principles of the society of sovereign States.

ers.

What about troops to sustain "inter-State commerce"?

The government of the United States has nothing to do with private traffic. That is the business of the several States. It is the duty of the government of the United States to send forward the mails and troops to their reservations, and it is the duty of the States to see that the mails and troops go through the several States without hindrance or molestation. No act of Congress, no pretence whatever, can set aside the plain language of the Constitution as to the rights of Governors and legislatures in case of "domestic violence.”

The government of the United States has contracted with owners of elevated, cable, and electric corporations in New York, and other cities, to affix to their cars postal departments, dominated by receiving, assorting, and distributing clerks, on their entire routes. In time this contract will give new employment to United States troops. The satrapy of the ancient days may find a parallel in our era. The history of the Roman Pretorian Band and the Swiss Guards of the Bourbons may be repeated here. Ours is virgin soil for usurpations.

United States troops protecting the mail service is one thing, but protecting property of a chartered State corporation is quite another. Corporations, when they bring danger upon themselves, and trouble and impecuniosity to their employees, will not scruple to make every car a mail-car, and thus cause citizens to be shot for presumed interference with postal matters and also with inter-State commerce.

Is the opinion of Justice Brewer Law?

In the Debs habeas corpus case a full bench of justices decided that he was in contempt of the Circuit Court, sitting at Chicago during the labor difficulties, in not obeying an injunction of Judge Wood, presiding, and therefore not entitled to the

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