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trol; and the fears of the complainants are, therefore,
equally groundless in this regard.
This respondent, further answering, respectfully shows
that the right and power to hold an election for the pur-
pose of calling a convention and of holding a convention
te frame a new constitution is a sovereign political right
existing in the people, overriding all constitutions and bills
of rights, and of which they cannot be deprived by the in-
terposition of one of their own agents.
Wherefore this respondent prays to be hence dismissed
with his reasonable costs, &c.
ORVILLE HORWITZ,
S. T. WALLIS,
Solicitors for Respondent.
State of Maryland, City of Baltimore, to wit: —Before
the subscriber, a justice of the peace in and for the city
and State aforesaid, on this first day of April, 1867, per-
sonally appeared William Thomson, and made oath that
the matters and things, stated in the aforegoing answer,
are true to the best of his knowledge and belief.
ALLEN E. FORRESTER, J. P.
JUDGE MARTIN'S OPINION.
On Tuesday, April 2, after Mr. Rogers had filed his
printed notes, Judge Martin handed down the following
opinion:
"The application for an injunction in this case is re-
jected. The allegations in the bill involve the considera-
tion of political questions, or legal questions, cognizable
only in a court of law, with which a court of equity has
no concern, and over which it has no jurisdiction.
"There is no power in a court of equity at the instance
of contestants, in the position of these complainants, and
upon the allegations in this bill, to interrupt the progress
of an election to be held by the legislative department of
the government on the averment that it is unauthorized.
There is no branch of equity jurisprudence within which
this power can be included. In 2 Story's Equity Juris-
prudence, section 872, and in Eden on injunction, the cases
proper to the application of the writ of injunction
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