United States v. Reese
92 U.S. 214 (1875)
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Rule of Law:
Penal statutes enacted by Congress under its Fifteenth Amendment enforcement power must be explicitly confined to punishing discrimination on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. A statute that is written in general terms to prohibit any wrongful interference with voting, thereby covering acts both within and outside of federal constitutional authority, is unconstitutional and will not be narrowed by judicial construction.
Facts:
- William Garner, a United States citizen of African descent, was qualified to vote in a municipal election in Lexington, Kentucky.
- Kentucky law required the payment of a capitation tax as a prerequisite for voting.
- Garner offered to pay the required tax to James F. Robinson, the designated city tax collector.
- Robinson refused to accept Garner's payment.
- At the election, Garner presented himself to vote and provided an affidavit to the election inspectors, Hiram Reese and Matthew Foushee, stating that he had been wrongfully prevented from paying the tax.
- Reese and Foushee, constituting a majority of the inspectors, refused to receive and count Garner's vote.
Procedural Posture:
- Hiram Reese and Matthew Foushee were indicted in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Kentucky.
- The indictment charged them under Sections 3 and 4 of the Enforcement Act of 1870 with refusing to receive the vote of William Garner.
- The defendants filed a general demurrer to the indictment, challenging its legal sufficiency.
- The judges of the Circuit Court were divided in opinion on the questions arising from the demurrer.
- The Circuit Court sustained the demurrer and entered a judgment discharging the defendants.
- The United States brought the case to the Supreme Court of the United States on a certificate of division of opinion.
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Issue:
Does the Enforcement Act of 1870, which penalizes any wrongful refusal by an election official to accept a vote without explicitly limiting the offense to refusals based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, constitute 'appropriate legislation' under the Fifteenth Amendment?
Opinions:
Majority - Chief Justice Waite
No, the Enforcement Act of 1870 is not 'appropriate legislation' under the Fifteenth Amendment because its punitive sections are not limited to discrimination on account of race. The Fifteenth Amendment does not grant a universal right of suffrage but protects citizens from discrimination in voting on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Congress's power to legislate is confined to this specific protection. Sections 3 and 4 of the Act are written in general language, punishing any person who hinders voting or any inspector who wrongfully refuses a vote, without mentioning race as a necessary element of the offense. A penal statute must be clear, and every person should be able to know with certainty when they are committing a crime. It would be dangerous for the legislature to create an overly broad statute and leave it to the courts to determine who can be rightfully prosecuted. The Court cannot rewrite the statute by inserting words of limitation ('on account of race'); to do so would be to legislate, not to interpret. Because the unconstitutional applications of the statute cannot be separated from the constitutional ones, the entire sections must be held invalid.
Dissenting - Justice Hunt
Yes, the Enforcement Act is appropriate legislation because, when read as a whole, it is clearly aimed at enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment. The majority's construction is overly strict and defeats the clear intent of Congress to protect the voting rights of newly enfranchised African Americans. The phrases 'as aforesaid' and 'wrongful act or omission aforesaid' in Sections 3 and 4 serve to incorporate the racial discrimination element explicitly mentioned in the preceding sections. The statute should be construed to give effect to all its parts and to achieve its manifest purpose. Furthermore, the acts of state election officials are the acts of the State for the purposes of the Amendment, and Congress has the power to enforce the amendment with penal legislation, not merely by reviewing state court decisions.
Concurring - Justice Clifford
The judgment to dismiss the indictment is correct, but for reasons different from the majority's. The indictment itself is fatally defective and insufficient, making it unnecessary to rule on the constitutionality of the underlying statute. The fourth count fails to properly allege the necessary elements of the offense, specifically that Garner's offer to pay the prerequisite tax was timely and that he was ready and able to pay it. An 'offer' under the statute must be one that, if accepted, would constitute a complete performance of the prerequisite. As the indictment does not sufficiently allege such an offer, it fails to state a crime under the Act, and the demurrer was properly sustained on that ground alone.
Analysis:
This decision represents one of the Supreme Court's first major interpretations of Congress's enforcement power under the Fifteenth Amendment and marked a significant retreat from federal protection of African American civil rights during the end of the Reconstruction era. By requiring penal statutes to be narrowly tailored to explicitly mention race, the Court severely curtailed Congress's ability to combat voter suppression. This ruling, along with others like United States v. Cruikshank, effectively invalidated key provisions of the Enforcement Acts and left African American voters vulnerable to disenfranchisement through facially non-racial means, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, which were applied discriminatorily by local officials.
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