" It was
also unjust, because it makes the law declare a known falsehood as a
truth, and then by force of that judicial falsehood condemns the
defendant to such punishment as she could only lawfully be subject to,
if the falsehood were a truth.
I admit that it is an established legal maxim that every person
(judicial officers excepted) is bound, and must be presumed, to know the
law. The soundness of this maxim, in all the cases to which it can
properly be applied, I have no desire to question; but it has no
applicability whatever to this case. It applies in every case where a
party does an act which the law pronounces criminal, whether the party
knows or does not know that the law has made the act a crime. That maxim
would have applied to this case, if the defendant had voted, knowing
that she had no legal right to vote; without knowing that the law had
made the act of knowingly voting without a right, a crime. In that case
she would have done the act which the law made a crime, and could not
have shielded herself from the penalty by pleading ignorance of the law.
But in the present case the defendant has not done the act which the law
pronounces a crime. The law has not made the act of voting without a
lawful right to vote, a crime, where it is done by mistake, and in the
belief by the party voting that he has the lawful right to vote.
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