Mr. Justice FIELD, dissenting.
I dissentfrom the judgment just rendered. I do not think that this court has any jurisdiction to determine a disputed question as to the right to the governorship of a state, however that question may be decided by its authorities. I agree that the states of the American Union are not in all respects independent political communities; I agree that they do not possess that supreme political authotity which would entitle them to be called 'sovereign states,' in the full sense of those terms, as they are often designated. They are qualified sovereignties, possessing only the powers of an independent political organization which are not ceded to the general government or prohibited to them by the constitution. But except as such powers are ceded to the general government or prohibited to them, the states are independent political communities. This is not a matter of argument or inference, but is the express declaration of the tenth amendment. As forcibly stated by Mr. Justice NELSON, speaking for this court, 'the general government and the states, although both exist within the same territorial limits, are separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other within their respective spheres. The former in its appropriate sphere is supreme; but the states within the limits of their powers not granted, or, in the language of the tenth amendment, 'reserved,' are as independent of the general government as that government, within its sphere, is independent of the states.' Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113, 124. In no respect is this independence of the states more marked, or more essential to their peace and tranquility, than in their absolute power to prescribe the qualifications of all their state officers, from their chief magistrate to the lowest official employed in the administration of their local government; to determine the manner of their election, whether by open or secret ballot, and whether by local bodies or by general suffrage; the tenure by which they shall hold their respective offices; the grounds on which their election may be contested, the tribunals before which such contest shall be made, the manner in which it shall be conducted; and the effect to be given to the decision rendered. With none of these things can the government of the United States interfere. In all these particulars, the states, to use the language of Mr. Justice NELSON, are as independent of the general government as that government, within its sphere, is independent of the states. Its power of interference with the administration of the affairs of the state and the officers through whom they are conducted extends only so far as may be necessary to secure to it a republican form of government, and protect it against invasion, and also against domestic violence on the application of its legislature, or of its executive when that body cannot be convened. Const. art. 4, § 4. Except as required for these purposes, it can no more interfere with the qualifications, election, and installation of the state officers than a foreign government. And all attempts at interference with them in those respects by the executive, legislative, or judicial departments of the general government are, in my judgment, so many invasions upon the reserved rights of the states, and assaults upon their constitutional autonomy.
No clause of the constitution can be named which in any respect gives countenance to such invasion. The fact that one of the qualifications prescribed by the state for its officers can only be ascertained and established by considering the provisions of a law of the United States in no respect authorizes an interference by the general government with the state action. Because an officer of a state must be a citizen of the United States, it does not follow that the tribunals of the United States can alone determine that fact, and that the decision of the state in respect to it can be supervised and controlled by the federal authorities. Nor is there any decision of this court that sanctions any such interference. There is a mere dictum in Missouri v. Andriano, 138 U.S. 496, 499, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 385, but no decision to that effect.