Speech #450021718

Lest the argument of my friend from Now York [Mr. HtscocK] should deceive some of the members as to the naturalization of the voter he has last referred to I desireto state the facts. In this case there was no pretense that the voter had not been naturalized by a court of competent jurisdiction. It is conceded that before that court he proved he had been a resident of this country five years and intended to be a bonafide citizen thereof and had complied with the other requirements of the law. and therefore the court directed the clerk to issue to him the regular certificate of naturalization. Now. the distinction which the law makes is this: that where fraudulent naturalization papers have been given up by the clerks of the court and the naturalization has not become therefore a judicial act it may be questioned collaterally and by anybody. But the authorities all go to show that where it is a judicial act of a court before whom certain facts must be presumed to have been proven it is not even in the power of the man himself to gainsay the record afterward. because if he could he might produce the whole mischief one way as well as the other. Suppose this voter. after having been naturalized. had been bribed where one vote turned the scale to come into the contestedelection case and swear he had not been in this country five years when he had sworn before the court he had been here five years: what would be the result? The judicial proceedings would pass for nothing and the ipse dixit of men through the country would set aside the solemn records of our court. The following is the statement of the law in MeCrarys American Law of Election. page 24: It Is very true that the judgment of a court of competent Jurisdietion In the matter of the naturalization of a citizen is as conclusive as its Judgment in any other matter within its jurisdiction. It says it is conclusive. But it is always competent to show that the parties were not within the j arldletlon of the court. and if the act of pretended naturalization was In fact the act of the clerk alone and not in any proper sense the act of the court. it would be a manstrolls doctrine to held that the certificate bearing the clerks signature and the seal is conclusive. Such a rul would permit the party who committed the fraud to protect himself by his own fuudulent certificate.