26 CONSTITUTION OF MARYLAND. [ART. 1

CONSTITUTION.*

AETIOLE I.

ELECTIVE FRANCHISE.

Section 1. All elections shall be by ballot; and every f male citizen
of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, or upwards, who
has been a resident of the State for one year, and of the Legislative
District of Baltimore City, or of the county, in which he may offer to
vote, for six months next preceding the election, shall be entitled to
vote, in the ward or election district in which he resides, at all elections
hereafter to be held in this State; and in case any county or city shall
be so divided as to form portions of different electoral districts, for the
election of Representatives in Congress, Senators, Delegates or other
Officers, then to entitle a person to vote for such officer, he must have
been a resident of that part of the county, or city, which shall form a
part of the electoral district, in which he offers to vote, for six months
next preceding the election; but a person, who shall have acquired a.
residence in such county or city, entitling him to vote at any such
election, shall be entitled to vote in the election district from which he
removed, until he shall have -acquired a residence in the part of the
county or city to which he has removed.

The registry act of 1865, chapter 174, disfranchising those who had
served in the Confederate army or had given aid and comfort thereto, and
providing a test oath, held constitutional. Citizenship and suffrage are
not inseparable, the latter not being an inalienable right but a conven-
tional one; nor is the right of suffrage a right of property. Distinction
between the declaration of rights and the constitution; the former does
not control the latter when it is clear and unambiguous, but the latter
must be taken as a limitation of the principles declared in the former.
Anderson v. Baker, 23 Md. 618. (See also separate and dissenting opinions
in this case.)

When a citizen has been a resident of Maryland for one year and of a
legislative district in Baltimore city for six months, he is entitled to vote
in the ward in which he resides. When a citizen has resided six months
in one legislative district and then moves into another legislative district,
he is entitled to vote in the former until he has resided six months in
the latter. Nature of wards: a right to vote does not depend on a resi-
dence for six months in any particular ward. If a person is not entitled
to vote, he is not entitled to register or remain registered. When a man
moves from one ward to another ward in the same legislative district, he is
entitled to vote in the latter ward. The constitutional qualifications of a
voter cannot be added to or taken from; how the constitution should be
construed; nature and importance of the elective franchise. Kemp v.
Owens, 76 Md. 237.

Meaning of the word "resident" as used in this section; distinction
between "domicile" and "residence"; status of a student and of a sea-
faring man. Howard v. Skinner, 87 Md. 558; Shaeffer v. Gilbert, 73 Md.
69; McLane v. Hobbs, 74 Md. 170; Langhammer v. Munter, 80 Md. 525;
Thomas v. Warner, 83 Md. 18.

*All amendments to the Constitution are included in brackets and follow the
section as originally adopted.

+ The word "white" omitted under the loth Amendment to the Constitution of
the United States.