alleged offenses in advance of trial, for offenses unknown
to the law, and by bill of attainder and _ex post facto
enactments_, etc.--(Green _vs._ Shumway, 36 Howard's
Practice Rep., pp. 7, 8.)

On the same subject, we will next quote from a decision by the
Supreme Court of Nevada:

LEWIS, C. J.--The form of the law by which an individual is
deprived of a constitutional right is immaterial. The test
of its constitutionality is, whether it operates to deprive
any person of a right guaranteed or given to him by the
Constitution. If it does, it is a nullity, whatever may be
its form. Surely a law which deprives a person of a right,
by requiring him to take an oath which he can not take, is
no less objectionable than one depriving him of such right
in direct terms.

To make the enjoyment of a right depend upon an impossible
condition, or upon the doing of that which can not legally
be done, is equivalent to an absolute denial of the right
under any condition. The effect, and not the language of the
law, in such case, must determine its constitutionality. It
would not be doubted for a moment that a law expressly
denying the elective franchise to any person upon whom the
Constitution confers it would be unconstitutional. Why,
then, is a law less objectionable which, although not
expressly and directly, yet no less certainly denies the
right, etc.--(Davies _vs._ McKeeby, 5 Nevada Rep. 7,371.)

We quote next from a Tennessee case:

The elective franchise is a right which the law protects and
enforces as jealously as it does property in chattels or
lands. It matters not by what name it is designated--the
right to vote, the elective franchise, or the privilege of
the elective franchise--the person who, under the
Constitution and laws of the State is entitled to it, has a
property in it, which the law maintains and vindicates as
vigorously as it does any right of any kind which men may
have and enjoy.

The rules of law which guard against deprivation or injury, the
rights of persons in corporeal properties, are alike and equally
applicable to the elective franchise, and