Opinion of the Court.

not a penal statute, but only a city ordinance regulating wharfage, and the suit was civil in its nature. The only question was whether the packet company was bound to pay for the use of improved wharves when the ordinance, taken in its breadth, fixed the charges and required payment for the use of that part of the established wharf which was unimproved as well as that which was improved. The precise point to be determined was whether, under those circumstances, the vessel owners were excused from paying for the use of that which was improved.

In Presser v. Illinois, the indictment was for a violation of the provisions of one of the sections of the Military Code of Illinois, and it was claimed that the whole code was invalid, because in its general scope and effect it was in conflict with Title XVI of the Revised Statutes of the United States upon the subject of "The Militia." But the court held that, even if the first two sections of the code, on which the objection rested, were invalid, they were easily separable from the rest which could be maintained. The objectionable sections related to the enrolment of the militia in the state generally, and the rest to the organization of eight thousand men as a "volunteer active militia." This evidently brought that case within the rule which controls the determination of this class of questions, that the constitutional part of a statute may be enforced and the unconstitutional part rejected, "where the parts are so distinctly separable that each can stand alone, and where the court is able to see and to declare that the intention of the legislature was that the part pronounced valid should be enforcible, even though the other part should fail." Virginia Coupon Cases, 114 U. S. at p. 305. As was said in Louisiana v. Allen, 103 U. S. 80, 84: "The point to be determined in all such cases is whether the unconstitutional provisions are so connected with the general scope of the law as to make it impossible, if they are stricken out, to give effect to what appears to have been the intent of the legislature."

Applying this rule to the present case, it is clear that § 5519 cannot be sustained in whole or in part in its operation within a state, unless United States v. Harris is overruled, and this

VOL. CXX-44

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we see no occasion for doing. That case was carefully consid ered at the time, and subsequent reflection has not changed our opinion as then expressed. For this reason we answer the second branch of the fourth question, which has been certified in the negative. This disposes of all the other points included in the first six questions, and no further answer to them is

necessary.

We come now to the questions certified, which arise under $ 5508. That this section is constitutional was decided in Ec parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, and United States v. Waddel 112 U. S. 76. The real question to be determined, therefore, is, whether what is charged to have been done by Baldwin constitutes an offence within the meaning of its provisions.

The section is found in Title LXX, c. 7, of the Revised Statutes embracing "Crimes against the Elective Franchise and Civil Rights of Citizens," and it provides for the punishment of those "who conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having exercised the same;" and of those who go in companies of two or more “in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured." The person on whom the wrong to be punishable must be inflicted is described as a citizen. In the Constitution and laws of the United States the word "citizen" is generally, if not always, used in a political sense to designate one who has the rights and privileges of a citizen of a state or of the United States. It is so used in section 1 of Article XIV of the amendments of the Constitution, which provides that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside," and that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shal abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." But it is also sometimes used in popular language to indicate the same thing as resident, inhabitant, or person. That it is not so used in § 5508 in the Revised Statutes is quite

Opinion of the Court.

clear, if we revert to the original statute from which this section was taken. That statute was the act of May 31, 1870, c. 114, 16 Stat. 140, "to enforce the Right of Citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of this Union, and for other purposes." It is the statute which was under consideration as to some of its sections in United States v. Reese, supra, and from its title, as well as its text, it is apparent that the great purpose of Congress in its enactment was to enforce the political rights of citizens of the United States in the several states. Under these circumstances there cannot be a doubt that originally the word "citizen" was used in its political sense, and as the Revised Statutes are but a revision and consolidation of the statutes in force December 1, 1873, the presumption is that the word has the same meaning there that it had originally.

This particular section is a substantial re-enactment of § 6 of the original act, which is found among the sections that deal exclusively with the political rights of citizens, especially their right to vote, and were evidently intended to prevent discriminations in this particular against voters on account "of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Sometimes, as in $3 and 4, the language is broader than this, and therefore, as decided in United States v. Reese, those sections are inoperative, but still it is everywhere apparent that Congress had it in mind to legislate for citizens, as citizens, and not as mere persons, residents or inhabitants.

This section is highly penal in its character, much more so than any others, for it not only provides as a punishment for the offence fine of not more than five thousand dollars and an imprisonment of not more than ten years, but it declares that any person convicted shall "be thereafter ineligible to any office, or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States." It is, therefore, to be construed strictly; not so strictly as to defeat the legislative will, but doubtful words are not to be extended beyond their natural meaning in the connection in which they are used. Here the doubtful word is "citizen," and it is used in connection with the rights and privileges pertaining to a man as a citizen,

Opinion of the Court.

and not as a person only or an inhabitant. And, besides, the crime has been classified in the revision among those which relate to the elective franchise and the civil rights of citizens. For these reasons we are satisfied that the word "citizen," as used in this statute, must be given the same meaning it has in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and that to constitute the offence which is there provided for, the wrong must be done to one who is a citizen in that sense.

It is true that the word "citizen" only occurs in the first clause of the section, but in the second clause there is nothing to indicate that any other than a citizen was meant, and the section of the original statute from which this was taken has nothing from which any different inference can be drawn. That clearly deals with citizens alone, and the revision differs from it only in a re-arrangement of the original sentences and the exclusion of some superfluous words. Sections 5506 and 5507, which immediately precede this in the revision, clearly refer to political rights only, for they both relate to the privilege of voting, § 5506 being for the protection of citizens in terms, and § 5507 being for the protection of those to whom the right of suffrage is guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution. It may be that by this construction of the statute some are excluded from the protection it affords who are as much entitled to it as those who are included; but that is a defect, if it exists, which can be cured by Congress, but not by the courts.

We therefore answer the first subdivision of the seventh question certified in the negative. The second subdivision need not be answered otherwise than it has been elsewhere in this opinion.

It remains only to consider that part of the questions certified which relates to § 5336. That section provides for the punishment of those who conspire, 1, "to overthrow, put down, or destroy by force the government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof;" or, 2, "by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States;" or, 3, "by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States con

Opinion of the Court.

trary to the authority thereof." This is a re-enactment of similar provisions in the act of July 31, 1861, c. 33, 12 Stat. 284, "to define and punish certain Conspiracies," and in that of April 20, 1871, c. 22, § 2, 17 Stat. 13, "to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and for other Purposes."

It cannot be claimed that Baldwin has been charged with a conspiracy to overthrow the government or to levy war within the meaning of this section. Nor is he charged with any attempt to seize the property of the United States. All, therefore, depends on that part of the section which provides a punishment for "opposing" by force the authority of the United States, or for preventing, hindering, or delaying the "execution" of any law of the United States.

This evidently implies force against the government as a government. To constitute an offence under the first clause, the authority of the government must be opposed; that is to say, force must be brought to resist some positive assertion of authority by the government. A mere violation of law is not enough; there must be an attempt to prevent the actual exercise of authority. That is not pretended in this case. The force was exerted in opposition to a class of persons who had the right to look to the government for protection against such wrongs, not in opposition to the government while actually engaged in an attempt to afford that protection.

So, too, as to the second clause, the offence consists in preventing, hindering, or delaying the government of the United States in the execution of its laws. This, as well as the other, means something more than setting the laws themselves at defiance. There must be a forcible resistance of the authority of the United States while endeavoring to carry the laws into execution. The United States are bound by their treaty with China to exert their power to devise measures to secure the subjects of that government lawfully residing within the territory of the United States against ill treatment, and if in their efforts to carry the treaty into effect they had been. forcibly opposed by persons who had conspired for that purpose, a state of things contemplated by the statute would have