That must be their spontaneous work.
But there was a question of fact, which constituted the very essence of
the offence, and one on which the jury were not only entitled to
exercise, but were in duty bound to exercise, their independent
judgment. That question of fact was, whether the defendant, at the time
when she voted, knew that she had not a right to vote. The statute makes
this knowledge the very gist of the offence, without the existence of
which, in the mind of the voter, at the time of voting, there is no
crime. There is none by the statute and none in morals. The existence of
this knowledge, in the mind of the voter, at the time of voting, is
under the statute, necessarily a fact and nothing but a fact, and one
which the jury was bound to find as a fact, before they could, without
violating the statute, find the defendant guilty. The ruling which took
that question away from the jury, on the ground that it was a question
of law and not of fact, and which declared that as a question of law,
the knowledge existed, was, I respectfully submit, a most palpable
error, both in law and justice. It was an error in law, because its
effect was to deny any force whatever to the most important word which
the statute uses in defining the offense--the word "knowingly.
Pages:
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115