482 HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. [June 19, 
as deciding who should and who should not serve as jurors. They 
thought that it was a political, not a civil, right, and like the right 
to hold an office, dependent on the will of the state. 
The next *case was also a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. 
The act of May 31, 1870, and its supplementary act of May 28, 
1871, known as the enforcement bill, was in question. Among its 
provisions were some making it a penal offense against the United 
States for an officer at an election for congressmen to do any act 
unauthorized by law, or make fraudulent certificates, or interfere 
with any other election officer in regard to such election. The 
petitioners, Siebold e¢ a/., were indicted in the United States Dis- 
trict Court of Maryland for violating this law while serving as 
judges of election in the city of Baltimore by putting in false 
ballots and making false returns. 
It was argued that Congress must either provide for the entire 
management of elections or let the states do it. Judge Bradley, 
who rendered the decision, did not find such a meaning in the 
constitutional provision that Congress might not make or alter 
regulations for congressional elections : 
>The more general reason assigned to it, that the nature of sover- 
eignty is such as to preclude the joint codperation of two sovereigns in 
matters in which both are mutually concerned, is not, in our judgment, 
of sufficient force to prevent concurrent and harmonious action on the 
part of the national and state governments in the election of representa- 
tives. It is af most an argument ad zmconveniente.” 
“There is nothing in the constitution to forbid such codperation. If 
the two governments had an entire equality of jurisdiction there might 
bean intrinsic difficulty in such codperation. By first taking jurisdiction 
of the subject the state would acquire exclusive jurisdiction in virtue of 
a well-known principle applicable to courts having coérdinate jurisdic- 
tion over the same matter; but no such equality exists in the present 
case. The power of Congress is, as we have seen, paramount. We 
hold it to be an incontrovertible principle that the government of the 
United States may, by means of physical force exercised through its official 
agents, execute on every part of American soil the powers and functions 
which belong to it.” 
““This necessarily involves the power to command obedience to its 
laws, and hence the power to keep the peace to that extent. This power 
to enforce its laws and to execute its functions in all places does not de- 
1 Lx parte Siebold et al, 100 U. S., 391 (1879). 
200 Gi, Sy) Pa B92: 
