The complainant and others who have surrendered their old bonds, and taken sixty per cent of the amount in the new bonds in full satisfaction, did so on the faith that the scheme should be carried into effect as a whole, and that all others taking the benefit of the act should be subject to the same condition that they were. It cannot be supposed that they would have made the sacrifice they did, without relying, as they had a right to do, on this essential feature of the scheme being rigidly carried out. The proposal to fund the levee debt at par entirely interferes with its accomplishment, and makes an unjust discrimination between one class of creditors and another. It is this aspect of the act of 1875, and the proposed proceedings under it, of which the petitioner has special reason to complain, and which furnishes substantial ground for giving him relief. True, it may be objected even to this view, as to the former one, that the bondholders of the State may refuse to come in and make the sacrifice required by the act; and, in such case, the State ought not to be for ever precluded from making such other disposition of the unissued consolidated bonds as may be beneficial to it, without being injurious to those who have accepted such bonds. If such a state of things should arise, after due time and opportunity shall have been given to test the practicability of carrying out the scheme, it will, undoubtedly, furnish proper ground for modified legislation, having due regard to the rights already vested. But the act in question was passed within three months after the adoption of the constitutional amendment confirmatory of the Funding Act, and before its practicability could possibly have been ascertained; and no attempt was made by the act to reinstate the bondholders who had come in, to their former position, or to return to them the forty per cent of their claims which they had surrendered, or in any manner to obviate the inequality and injustice to which they would be subjected by the change of plan. In our judgment, therefore, the court below was right in granting the injunction as to the consolidated bonds, if the defendants, occupying the official position they do, are amenable to such a process. On this branch of the subject the numerous and well-considered cases heretofore decided by this court leave little to be said. The objections to proceeding against State officers by mandamus or injunction are: first, that it is, in effect, proceeding against the State itself; and, secondly, that it interferes with the official discretion vested in the officers. It is conceded that neither of these things can be done. A State, without its consent, cannot be sued by an individual; and a court cannot substitute its own discretion for that of executive officers in matters belonging to the proper jurisdiction of the latter. But it has been well settled, that, when a plain official duty, requiring no exercise of discretion, is to be performed, and performance is refused, any person who will sustain personal injury by such refusal may have a mandamus to compel its performance; and when such duty is threatened to be violated by some positive official act, any person who will sustain personal injury thereby, for which adequate compensation cannot be had at law, may have an injunction to prevent it. In such cases, the writs of mandamus and injunction are somewhat correlative to each other. In either case, if the officer plead the authority of an unconstitutional law for the non-performance or violation of his duty, it will not prevent the issuing of the writ. An unconstitutional law will be treated by the courts as null and void. Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 859; Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 220. Decree affirmed, so far as it prohibits the funding of the debt due to the Louisiana Levee Company in the consolidated bonds issued or to be issued under the Funding Act of Jan. 24, 1874; and reversed as to so much thereof as prohibits the issue of any other bonds to said Louisiana Levee Company in liquidation of said debt. MR. JUSTICE FIELD did not sit in this case, and took no part in the decision. UNITED STATES v. CRUIKSHANK ET AL. 1. Citizens are the members of the political community to which they belong. They are the people who compose the community, and who, in their associated capacity, have established or submitted themselves to the dominion of a government for the promotion of their general welfare and the protection of their individual as well as their collective rights. The duty of a government to afford protection is limited always by the power it possesses for that purpose. 2. There is in our political system a government of each of the several States, and a government of the United States. Each is distinct from the others, and has citizens of its own, who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect. The same person may be at the same time a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a State; but his rights of citizenship under one of these governments will be different from those he has under the other. 3. The government of the United States, although it is, within the scope of its powers, supreme and beyond the States, can neither grant nor secure to its citizens rights or privileges which are not expressly or by implication placed under its jurisdiction. All that cannot be so granted or secured are left to the exclusive protection of the States. 4. The right of the people peaceably to assemble for lawful purposes, with the obligation on the part of the States to afford it protection, existed long before the adoption of the Constitution. The first amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting Congress from abridging the right to assemble and petition, was not intended to limit the action of the State governments in respect to their own citizens, but to operate upon the national government alone. It left the authority of the States unimpaired, added nothing to the already existing powers of the United States, and guaranteed the continuance of the right only against Congressional interference. The people, for their protection in the enjoyment of it, must, therefore, look to the States, where the power for that purpose was originally placed. 5. The right of the people peaceably to assemble, for the purpose of petitioning Congress for a redress of grievances, or for any thing else connected with the powers or duties of the national government, is an attribute of national citizenship, and, as such, under the protection of and guaranteed by the United States. The very idea of a government republican in form implies that right, and an invasion of it presents a case within the sovereignty of the United States. 6. The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national govern ment. 7. Sovereignty, for the protection of the rights of life and personal liberty within the respective States, rests alone with the States. 8. The fourteenth amendment prohibits a State from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, and from denying to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws; but it adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as against another. It simply furnishes an additional guaranty against any encroachment by the States upon the fundamental rights which belong to every citizen as a member of society. The duty of protecting all its citizens in the enjoyment of an equality of rights was originally assumed by the States, and it still remains there. The only obligation resting upon the United States is to see that the States do not deny the right. This the amendment guarantees, but no more. The power of the national government is limited to the enforcement of this guaranty. 9. In Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 178, this court decided that the Constitution of the United States has not conferred the right of suffrage upon any one, and that the United States have no voters of their own creation in the States. In United States v. Reese et al., supra, p. 214, it held that the fifteenth amendment has invested the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right, which is, exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The right to vote in the States comes from the States; but the right of exemption from the prohibited discrimination comes from the United States. The first has not been granted or secured by the Constitution of the United States, but the last has been. 10. The counts of an indictment which charge the defendants with having banded and conspired to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate citizens of the United States, of African descent, therein named; and which in substance respectively allege that the defendants intended thereby to hinder and prevent such citizens in the free exercise and enjoyment of rights and privileges granted and secured to them in common with other good citizens by the constitution and laws of the United States; to hinder and prevent them in the free exercise of their right peacefully to assemble for lawful purposes; prevent and hinder them from bearing arms for lawful pur poses; deprive them of their respective several lives and liberty of person without due process of law; prevent and hinder them in the free exercise and enjoyment of their several right to the full and equal benefit of the law; prevent and hinder them in the free exercise and enjoyment of their several and respective right to vote at any election to be thereafter by law had and held by the people in and of the State of Louisiana, or to put them in great fear of bodily harm, and to injure and oppress them, because, being and having been in all things qualified, they had voted at an election theretofore had and held according to law by the people of said State, do not present a case within the sixth section of the Enforcement Act of May 31, 1870 (16 Stat. 141). To bring a case within the operation of that statute, it must appear that the right the enjoy ment of which the conspirators intended to hinder or prevent was one granted or secured by the constitution or laws of the United States. If it does not so appear, the alleged offence is not indictable under any act of Congress. - 11. The counts of an indictment which, in general language, charge the defendants with an intent to hinder and prevent citizens of the United States, of African descent, therein named, in the free exercise and enjoyment of the rights, privileges, immunities, and protection, granted and secured to them respectively as citizens of the United States, and of the State of Louisiana, because they were persons of African descent, and with the intent to hinder and prevent them in the several and free exercise and enjoyment of every, each, all, and singular the several rights and privileges granted and secured to them by the constitution and laws of the United States, do not specify any particular right the enjoyment of which the conspirators intended to hinder or prevent, are too vague and general, lack the certainty and precision required by the established rules of criminal pleading, and are therefore not good and sufficient in law. 12. In criminal cases, prosecuted under the laws of the United States, the accused has the constitutional right" to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation." The indictment must set forth the offence with clearness and all necessary certainty, to apprise the accused of the crime with which he stands charged; and every ingredient of which the offence is composed must be accurately and clearly alleged. It is an elementary principle of criminal pleading, that, where the definition of an offence, whether it be at common law or by statute, includes generic terms, it is not sufficient that the indictment shall charge the offence in the same generic terms as in the definition, but it must state the species, — it must descend to particulars. The object of the indictment is, — first, to furnish the accused with such a description of the charge against him as will enable him to make his defence, and avail himself of his conviction or acquittal for protection against a further prosecution for the same cause; and, second, to inform the court of the facts alleged, so that it may decide whether they are sufficient in law to support a conviction, if one should be had. For this, facts are to be stated, not conclusions of law alone. A crime is made up of acts and intent; and these must be set forth in the indictment, with reasonable particularity of time, place, and circumstances. 18. By the act under which this indictment was found, the crime is made to consist in the unlawful combination with an intent to prevent the enjoyment of any right granted or secured by the Constitution, &c. All rights are not so granted or secured. Whether one is so or not is a question of law, to be decided by the court. The indictment should, therefore, state the particulars, to inform the court as well as the accused. It must appear from the indictment that the acts charged will, if proved, support a conviction for the offence alleged. ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana. This was an indictment for conspiracy under the sixth section of the act of May 30, 1870, known as the Enforcement Act (16 Stat. 140), and consisted of thirty-two counts. The first count was for banding together, with intent "unlawfully and feloniously to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate" two citizens of the United States, "of African descent and persons of color," "with the unlawful and felonious intent thereby" them "to hinder and prevent in their respective free |