Mason v. Missouri

Citations

• 179 U.S. 328
• 21 S. Ct. 125
• 45 L. Ed. 214
• 1900 U.S. LEXIS 1875

Syllabus

<p>The Supreme Court of the State of Missouri having decided that the provision of the state constitution respecting the enactment of registration laws does not limit the power of the general assembly to create more than one class composed of cities having a population in excess of one hundred thousand inhabitants, this conclusion must be accepted by this court.</p> <p>The general right to vote in the State of Missouri is primarily derived from the State; and the elective franchise, if one of the fundamental privileges and immunities of- the citizens of St. Louis, as citizens of Missouri and of the United States, is clearly such franchise, as regulated and established by the laws or constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised.</p> <p>The power to classify cities with reference to their population having been exercised, in this case, in-conformity with the constitution of the State, the circumstance that the registration law in force in the city of St. Louis was made to differ in essential particulars from that which regulated the conduct of elections in other cities in the State of Missouri, does not, in itself, deny to thb citizens of St. Louis the equal protection of the laws; nor did the exercise by the general assembly of Missouri of the discretion vested in it by law, give rise to a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.</p>