ent."

The "Drake Constitution" was formulated at a time when fierce
passion was at its height, when the sad consequences of civil
war were felt at every fireside, when neighbor was arrayed against
neighbor, the hand of brother uplifted against brother, and "a
man's foes were they of his own household." As is well known,
certain provisions of this Constitution were, at a later day--upon
a writ of error--set aside by the Supreme Court of the United States
as being in violation of the Federal Constitution. One of the
thirty distinct affirmations or tests of the Drake Constitution was
to the effect that, if any minister or priest should be guilty of
the crime of preaching the Gospel, or of solemnizing the rite of
marriage, without first having taken an oath to support said
Constitution, he should, upon conviction, be subjected to a fine
of not less than five hundred dollars, imprisonment for six months
in the common jail, or both.

Under the provision indicated, a Catholic priest was convicted
in one of the circuit courts of Missouri, and duly sentenced to
fine and imprisonment. Upon his appeal, the Supreme Court of
the United States reversed the decision of the lower court, and
virtually abrogated the provision of the Constitution under which the
accused had been convicted. The great court of last resort decided
the test oath, imposed as above mentioned, to be a violation of
that provision of the Constitution of the United States which
declares, "No State shall pass any bill of attainder, or _ex
post facto_ law." It held a bill of attainder to be "a legislative
act which inflicts punishment without a judicial trial"; and an
_ex post facto_ law "one which imposes a punishment for an act
which was not punishable at the time it was committed; or imposes
additional punishment to that then prescribed." The court said:
"The oath thus required is, for its severity, without any precedent
that we can discover. In the first place, it is retrospective; it
embraces all the past from this day; and if taken years hence,
it will also cover all the intervening period. . . . It allows no
distinction between acts springing from malignant enmity, and acts
which may have been prompted by charity, or affection, or relationship.
. . . The clauses in question subvert the presumption of innocence,
and alter the rules of evidence which heretofore, under the
universally recognized principles of the common law, have been
supposed to be f