CONSTITUTION.

ARTICLE I.

ELECTIVE FRANCHISE.

Section 1. All elections shall be by ballot; and every1 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, ch. 174, disfranchising those who had served in the Con-
federate 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 conventional 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 residence 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.

This section relates only to elections which the Constitution itself requires to be
held, and hence has no application to municipal corporations other than Baltimore

1 The word " white " omitted under the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States.