Thus the question involved in this controversy is not a question of the reserved rights to interpret the state laws. It is the often noticed or unmentioned component in federalism, the rights reserved to the people. The construct of the model of Federalism is more fluid than government to government, but active promotes the citizen participation. Justice Breyer, in dissent in United States v Morrison provides a key of the evolving fluidity."-
Its state/federal division of authority protects liberty-both by restricting the burdens that government can impose from a distance and by facilitating citizen participation in government that is closer to home.
The matter Gould v. Campbell has significances. Just as the Tenth amendment extends powers to the States the truism of the Tenth Amendment provides that the States' rights, originally , as a political theory, every citizen had the right to appear at an election for any public office. Much of the United States lands, which had been acquired in the settlement with the British Government, accompanied the reserved powers delegated to the States.
The period did not feature political parties per se, but were organized by States-- in minority and majority. Amendment X gives the minority party - whichever party that may be -- the power to make its case in each of the state legislatures , and thereby provides a vital outlet for their policy preferences. As for those elections to the Congress, the states would elect from their Legislatures , the Senator or "-representative of the sovereign state for the terms in the Constitution. The States also would have delegations
"from the People"- through elections to the House of Representatives. At the time of the American Revolution and at the framing of the Constitution, the right to vote was restricted upon two assumptions : First, that men who owned property, especially land, had a "stake" in preserving society and the government in order to protect their wealth. Second, only men of property had the "independence" to decide important political matters and to choose the members of the assembly who would debate and decide these matters. The Constitution did not original mention "voting"- but referred to the election of offices and electors from the States.
The restrictions to the right to vote or disqualification were constitutional provided for under the same Amendment that is generally cited as "Equal Protection"- or Due Process. The Fourteenth Amendment provides that "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"-.
Section 2 of the Fourteenth amendment provides for Representation as it is Apportioned to the Congress and to be for the States and to provide for no denial including the Executive, judicial and legislatures; or in any way abridged:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3 of the Amendment provides the exceptions. Other than "non taxpaying Indians"- certain classes were barred or disqualified for public office.
: Section 3. No one shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
By the time of Harper, many of the Reconstruction period objections ( "he was a confederate') had been codified by the State's legislatures. The right of Women came by Amendment and granted women full political equality. Progressive measures replaced the "confederate disqualifications"-. "laws relating to primaries and elections do not confer the rights of qualified persons to become candidates, but merely regulate the exercise of such right in an orderly way. (Manning v. Young , 210 Wis. 588, 247 NW 61 (1933).
The majority opinion in Morrison write: The fourteenth amendment prohibits a state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; but this adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as against another. It simply furnishes an additional guaranty against any encroachment by the States upon the fundamental rights which belong to every citizen as a member of society
The rights of the State are "limited"- by the Amendment X itself. And by other portions of the Constitution and the power of Congress over elections. That power of Congress like that of interstate commerce 'is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution.' . . . That power can neither be enlarged nor diminished by the exercise or non- exercise of state power. . . . It is no objection to the assertion of the power to regulate interstate commerce that its exercise is attended by the same incidents which attended the exercise of the police power of the states. . . . Our conclusion is unaffected by the Tenth Amendment which . . . states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered.''--Chief Justice Stone, 312 U.S. 100, 114, 123, 124 (1941).
When the state district court judge ruled candidate Gould " disqualified the candidate and removed his name from the ballot," he did more than add additional qualifications not present in the creating document for the office-- the state constitution. He applied a standard from which he and other state officers are prohibited: a test or device.
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