274 



FLORIDA. 



pleases, and to utter and publish his sentiments un- 

 disturbed by menace of violence and threats of dis- 

 franchisement, and so recognizing and sustaining this 

 right, we denounce and arraign the Republican party 

 for its systematic appeals to mob violence over the 

 colored people of this State, and for the systematic 

 terrorism over them which has been a regular appli- 

 ance of its political machinery. We pledge ourselves 

 to protect every citizen in the exercise of his rights 

 against all lawlessness, to the fullest possible extent. 



Resolved^ That the Conservative-Democratic party 

 of Florida condemn and denounce in unqualified lan- 

 guage the frauds in elections which have been so 

 frequent of late years. We arraign the Republican 

 leaders, and charge them with being the authors and 

 instigators of these crimes against the purity of the 

 ballot-box ; but whether perpetrated by Republicans, 

 or men calling themselves Democrats, we condemn 

 these acts as dangerous to our political institutions 

 and subversive of our system of government. 



Resolved, That we favor a liberal public-school 

 system, exempt from all sectarian influences. 



Resolved, That we favor the disencumberment of 

 the Internal Improvement Fund of the State at the 

 earliest practicable moment, and the appropriation of 

 the public lands, as far as may be necessary, to the 

 construction of a railroad through south Florida, and 

 the completion of the road from the Appalachicola 

 River to Fensacola in west Florida. 



Resolved, That we deem it of the utmost importance 

 to the commerce of the whole country that a ship-canal 

 be constructed across the peninsula of Florida, and we 

 request our Senators and Representatives in the Con- 

 gress of the United States to use such means as will 

 most effectually accomplish the construction of that 

 very important public enterprise. 



Before the election a spirited controversy 

 took place between the rival parties upon the 

 import of the clauses of the State Constitution 

 and the laws upon the statute-books, which 

 deprive persons who have been convicted of 

 crimes of the right of suffrage. In the Consti- 

 tution of 1868 one section declares that no per- 

 son convicted of felony shall be qualified to 

 vote unless restored to civil rights ; and an- 

 other section requires the Legislature to pass 

 laws excluding from public office and from the 

 right of suffrage all persons convicted of bri- 

 bery, perjury, larceny, or of infamous crime, as 

 well as any person convicted of betting upon the 

 result of elections, or of being party to a duel, 

 which provision was duly carried out in an 

 election act defining the classes of persons who 

 are not entitled to vote. The clause in the 

 statute relating to the disqualification of crimi- 

 nals defined this class of non-voters as follows : 

 " Persons hereafter convicted of felony, bribe- 

 ry, perjury, larceny, or other infamous crime." 

 The Republicans contended that the law did 

 not include petit larceny or any grade oflar- 

 'Ceny below a felony, and that conviction by a 

 justice's court did not take away the right of 

 suffrage. The Attorney-General, George P. 

 Raney, in answer to a question pnt to him by 

 Governor Drew, expressed the opinion that no 

 person is entitled to vote who has been con- 

 victed of the crime of larceny since the date of 

 the approval of the general election law, Au- 

 gust 6, 1868, unless subsequently pardoned or 

 restored to civil rights, whether the larceny be 

 a felony or a misdemeanor. The reasons for 

 this interpretation he stated at length, at the 



request of the Governor, in an opinion deliv- 

 ered on the 2d of October. The clause of the 

 Constitution disqualifying persons convicted of 

 felony needed no act of legislation to give it 

 the force of a law. The subsequent section of 

 the same article, empowering and commanding 

 the Legislature to pass an election law, depriv- 

 ing persons who should be tried and convicted 

 of certain specified crimes of the elective fran- 

 chise, must have contemplated other crimes 

 than felonies. Neither the Constitution nor 

 the statute limits the disqualifying power to 

 any particular grade of larceny. The statute 

 follows closely the wording of the Constitution 

 in declaring the disqualifications for the fran- 

 chise, using the same words, or terras of exactly 

 equivalent meaning, excepting that, instead of 

 saying "persons convicted of bribery, perjury, 

 larceny, or of infamous crime " shall be disqual- 

 ified, it has u bribery, perjury, larceny, or oth- 

 er infamous crime." This phrase is capable of 

 two different constructions : it either infers 

 that larceny of all grades is to be rated among 

 infamous crimes; or it might be construed to 

 signify that the degree of larceny which dis- 

 franchises is only that which amounts to an 

 infamous crime. If this less obvious construc- 

 tion is put upon it, the question arises as to 

 what constitutes an infamous crime. Legal 

 authorities define a crime to be infamous which 

 subjects a person to infamous punishment or 

 incapacitates him from being a witness, and a 

 person to be infamous who may be challenged 

 for a juror propter delictum. According to 

 the statute-law of Florida, the offenses which 

 exclude a person from giving evidence in 

 court are murder, perjury, pirncy, forgery, 

 larceny, robbery, arson, etc. This declaration 

 is contained in an enactment which was passed 

 in the year 1845, and which remains still in 

 force. It is a general statute, nnd include? all 

 grades of larceny, whether i'elonies or misde- 

 meanors. In the Bill of Rights is a provision 

 that no one shall be tried for a capital or oth- 

 erwise infamous crime unless on an indict- 

 ment by the grand jury, excepting in cases of 

 impeachment, in cases of the militia, or in cases 

 of petit larceny, thus indicating that the fram- 

 ers of the Constitution regarded petit larceny 

 as an infamous crime. 



The conclusion, then, is, even if the Legisla- 

 ture meant that no conviction of larceny should 

 prevent a person from voting, unless the lar- 

 ceny was an infamous crime, that all larcenies 

 are infamous crimes, and therefore the convic- 

 tion, by any competent court, of a person of any 

 larceny, prevents the person convicted from 

 voting, unless he shall have been pardoned or 

 restored to civil rights. " A conviction of a 

 person of larceny by a justice of the peace's 

 court, acting within its jurisdiction under the 

 provisions of the act to regulate criminal pro- 

 ceedings before justices of the peace, approved 

 March 2, 1877, is as effectual to produce tho 

 disability as a conviction by a circuit court 

 acting within its jurisdiction." 



