39

The words of the 9th section are: The Governor shall be
commander in chief of the Land and Naval forces of the State,
and may call out the militia to repel invasions, suppress insur-
rections, and enforce the execution of the laws, but shall not
take the command in person, without the consent of the Legis-
lature." The 10th section declares; "He shall take care that
the laws be faithfully executed." The power "to enforce the ex-
ecution of the laws'' necessarily implies the timely provision of a
force for the execution and to be ready for the necessary interven-
tion; such a force may therefore be organized to serve the contin-
gency, and, consequently, may be called out where there is im-
pending danger that the contingency will occur.

This power, it belongs to the Governor to exercise where, in
his judgment, there is threatening danger, under the 10th section,
which enjoins on him to see that "the laws be faithfully execu-
ted." How the elective franchise is guarded by our laws, even
by the Constitution, needs no reference to the ordinances of the
one or the other. The Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 2, besides pro-
viding for other punishments, furnishes with disqualification to
hold office, or even to vote at any election, any one who shall for-
cibly prevent another from voting at elections.

It is with reference to the case of imminent danger of such trans-
gressions that we understand our opinion to be now asked; and we
therefore, specially mention the legal sanctions of the right of vot-
ing—"the laws," whose "execution" is to be enforced," as pe-
culiarly sacred.

To give a power by the use of certain means to relieve or re-
dress an actual exigency, and not to give the privilege to prepare
such means for the exigency, and when the peril of it is indicated or
impending, is, we think, destructive of the very power itself.

But on this subject we are not left to general reasoning. The
Supreme Court of the United States (in 12 Wheaton's Reports 28,
Marton vs. Mott,) has settled the point, upon the construction of
the corresponding clause of the Constitution of the United States
as to the control over the militia of the States given to the United
States Government. The clause of the United States Constitu-
tion declares (Art. 1, Sec. 8,) that Congress shall have the power
to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the
Union, suppress insurrection and repel invasions, terms almost iden-
tical with the words of the Maryland Constitution.

The case just referred to, as adjudged in the Supreme Court of
the United States, arose upon the act of Congress passed in 1795,
under this constitutional clause, that act giving to the President of
the United States the power to "call forth the militia whenever the
United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of inva-
sion." The Supreme Court decided the act to be constitutional,
and say that there is no ground for a doubt that Congress, under
the words of the Constitution had the power to provide for cases