This case arises on a criminal information filed by the district attorney of the United States for the Eastern district of Arkansas in the circuit court for that district. The defendants demurred to the information, and, on consideration of the demurrer, the judges of that court were divided in opinion on three questions, which they have certified to this court, as follows: '(1) Whether section 5508 of the Revised Statutes is a constitutional and valid law. (2) Whether the information in said cause charged and offence under said section 5508 of the Revised Statutes of the United States or against any statute of the United States. (3) Whether the demurrer to said information was well taken and should be sustained.'
The first and second counts of the information undertake to set out a conspiracy of the defendants, under section 5508, to deprive or hinder Burrell Lindsey, a citizen of the United States, of the right to establish his claim to certain lands of the United States under the homestead acts, namely, sections 2289, 2290, and 2291 of the Revised Statutes. And the third count, without charging a conspiracy, states that defendants went upon the land of the United States, occupied by said Lindsey as a homestead, with intent to prevent and hinder him from residing upon and improving said land, and maturing the title to himself to said homestead entry, a right secured to him by the sections of the Revised Statutes aforesaid. The first question certified to us, as to the constitutional validity of section 5508 of the Revised Statutes, was answered in the affirmative by the unanimous opinion of this court in Yarbrough's Case, 110 U.S. 651; S.C.. 4 SUP. CT. REP. 152. It is not deemed necessary or appropriate to add to what was there so recently said on that subject. The first question must therefore be answered affirmatively.
Does the information charge any offense under that section? The section reads thus: 'If two or more persons conspire to injure or oppress, threaten or intimidate, any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or if two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured,-they shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars and imprisoned not more than ten years; and shall, moreover, be thereafter ineligible to any office, or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the constitution or laws of the United States.' The substance of the first two counts of the information is that Burrell Lindsey, a citizen of the United States, made on the thirtieth day of December, 1882, at the United States land-office at Little Rock, a homestead entry on a quarter section of land subject to entry at that place: that afterwards, to-wit, on the tenth day of January, 1883, while residing on and cultivating said land for the purpose of perfecting his right to the same, under the laws of the United States on that subject, namely, sections 2289, 2290, and 2291 of the Revised statutes, the defendant conspired to injure and oppress him, and to intimidate and threaten him in the free exercise and enjoyment of that right and because of his having exercised it, and to prevent his compliance with those laws; and in the second count, that, in pursuance of this conspiracy, they did, upon said homestead tract, with force and arms, fire off loaded guns and pistols in the cabin of said Lindsey, and did then and there drive him from his home on said homestead entry. The third count charges that the defendants went in disguise on said premises while occupied by said Lindsey, with intent to prevent and hinder the free exercise of and enjoyment by him of the right and privilege to make said homestead entry on lands of the United States secured to him by the constitution and laws of the United States, and the right to cultivate and improve said land, and to mature his title as provided by the statute already referred to.