ter numerous provisions therein to prevent an
evasion of the fifteenth amendment, provides that the jurisdiction of
the circuit court of the United States shall extend to all cases in
law or equity arising under the provisions of said act and of the act
amendatory thereof. Congress seems to have contemplated equitable as
well as legal proceedings to prevent the denial of suffrage to colored
citizens; and it may be safely asserted that if Kellogg's bill in the
above-named case did not present a case for the equitable interposition
of the court, that no such case can arise under the act. That the courts
of the United States have the right to interfere in various ways with
State elections so as to maintain political equality and rights therein,
irrespective of race or color, is comparatively a new, and to some seems
to be a startling, idea, but it results as clearly from the fifteenth
amendment to the Constitution and the acts that have been passed to
enforce that amendment as the abrogation of State laws upholding slavery
results from the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. While the
jurisdiction of the court in the case of Kellogg _vs_. Warmoth and
others is clear to my mind, it seems that some of the orders made by the
judge in that and the kindred case of Antoine were illegal. But while
they are so held and considered, it is not to be forgotten that the
mandate of his court had been contemptuously defied, and they were made
while wild scenes of anarchy were sweeping away all restraint of law
and order. Doubtless the judge of this court made grave mistakes; but
the law allows the chancellor great latitude, not only in punishing
those who contemn his orders and injunctions, but in preventing the
consummation of the wrong which he has judicially forbidden. Whatever
may be said or thought of those matters, it was only made known to me
that process of the United States court was resisted, and as said act
especially provides for the use of the Army and Navy when necessary to
enforce judicial process arising thereunder, I considered it my duty
to see that such process was executed according to the judgment of
the court.

Resulting from these proceedings, through various controversies and
complications, a State administration was organized with William P.
Kellogg as governor, which, in the discharge of my duty under section 4,
Article IV, of the Constitution, I have recognized as the government of
the State.

It has be