Section 15 of said act, after numerous provisions therein to prevent an
evasion of the fifteenth amendment, provides that the jurisdiction of
the circuit court of the United States shall extend to all cases in
law or equity arising under the provisions of said act and of the act
amendatory thereof. Congress seems to have contemplated equitable as
well as legal proceedings to prevent the denial of suffrage to colored
citizens; and it may be safely asserted that if Kellogg's bill in the
above-named case did not present a case for the equitable interposition
of the court, that no such case can arise under the act. That the courts
of the United States have the right to interfere in various ways with
State elections so as to maintain political equality and rights therein,
irrespective of race or color, is comparatively a new, and to some seems
to be a startling, idea, but it results as clearly from the fifteenth
amendment to the Constitution and the acts that have been passed to
enforce that amendment as the abrogation of State laws upholding slavery
results from the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. While the
jurisdiction of the court in the case of Kellogg _vs_. Warmoth and
others is clear to my mind, it seems that some of the orders made by the
judge in that and the kindred case of Antoine were illegal.
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