absolute power of alienation, or prohibited by How. Stat. §§ 5530, 5531. As no expectant estate can be defeated or barred by any alienation or other act of the owner of the intermediate or precedent estate, nor by any destruction of such precedent estate by disseisin, forfeiture, surrender, merger, or otherwise, there is no reason why the present suit may not be maintained. Id. § 5548.

The jury found that Green had notice of this lease, and the right of entry did not accrue until the death of Rebecca; so that there is no statute of limitation to bar a recovery.

The judgment will be affirmed.

SHERWOOD, C. J., MORSE and CAMPBELL, JJ., concurred. LONG, J., did not sit.

ATTORNEY GENERAL, EX REL. EDWIN F. CONELY, V.
THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DETROIT.

Elections-Registration-Constitutional law.

1. Act No. 468, Local Acts of 1889, relative to the registration of voters, etc., in the city of Detroit, is unreasonable and void, in that it undertakes to disfranchise a large number of voters, through no fault of their own, and to make an unjust and unlawful discrimination between the rights of native-born and naturalized citizens and electors.

2. The following propositions are summarized from the opinion of Mr. Justice MORSE:

a-The expense attendant upon obedience to a valid law cannot be alleged as a sufficient reason for not obeying it.

b-The Constitution authorizes the Legislature to enact laws "to preserve the purity of elections, and to guard against abuses of the elective franchise;" but this does not authorize, by direction or indirection, the disfranchisement, without his

78 MICH.-35.

own fault or negligence, of any elector under the Constitution.
c-The laws to regulate elections, and to preserve their purity,
and to guard against abuses to the elective franchise, must be
reasonable, uniform, and impartial, and must be calculated to
facilitate and secure, rather than to subvert and impede, the
exercise of the right to vote. Capen v. Foster, 12 Pick. 488.
d-There is no good reason why the boards of registration
cannot sit within the ten days before election necessary to gain
a voting residence, and thereby preserve to each elector his
constitutional right; and the constitutional term of such resi-
dence cannot be increased under the guise of regulation, any
more than it can be done directly, as a mere exercise of the
legislative will.

e-A registration law is unreasonable which contains no provision by which an elector who is sick on the days fixed for registration can vote on election day.

f-The object of a registry law, or of any law to preserve the purity of the ballot-box, and to guard against abuses to the elective franchise, is not to prevent any qualified elector from voting, or unnecessarily to hinder or impair his privilege.

g-In order to prevent fraud at the ballot-box, it is proper and legal that all needful rules and regulations be made to that end; but it is not necessary that such rules and regulations shall be so unreasonable and restrictive as to exclude a large number of legal voters from exercising their franchise. The power of the Legislature in such cases is limited to laws regulating the enjoyment of the right, by facilitating its lawful exercise, and by preventing its abuse. The right to vote must not be impaired by the regulation. It must be regulation, not destruction. Page v. Allen, 58 Penn. St. 338; Dells v. Kennedy, 49 Wis. 555; Edmonds v. Banbury, 28 Iowa, 267; Monroe v. Collins, 17 Ohio St. 665, 685; Daggett v. Hudson, 43 Id. 561; State v. Butts, 31 Kan. 554.

h-Requirements which compel a naturalized elector to produce his certificate, or show by evidence other than his own oath that such a certificate was issued, make an unfair and unnecessary distinction between native-born and naturalized electors.

i-No registry law is valid which deprives an elector of his constitutional right to vote by any regulation with which it is impossible for him to comply.

j-No elector can lose his right to vote, the highest exercise of the freeman's will, except by his own fault or negligence.

Mandamus. Submitted October 11, 1889. Denied October 11, 1889, and opinion filed December 28, 1889.

Relator applied for mandamus to compel the common council of the city of Detroit to observe and carry out the provisions of Act No. 468, Local Acts of 1889, relative to the registration of voters, etc., in the city of Detroit. The facts are stated in the opinion.

S. V. R. Trowbridge, Attorney General, and Edwin F Conely (William P. Wells, of counsel), for relator.

John W. McGrath, for respondent.

MORSE, J. At the last session of the Legislature an act was passed, entitled

"An act to preserve the purity of elections, and guard against abuses of the elective franchise, in the city of Detroit."

This act was approved by the Governor July 1, 1889, upon which day it took effect, and became operative. Local Acts of 1889, p. 994.

The relator, in his petition, sets forth that the common council of the city of Detroit has neglected and failed to comply with the law, and still fails and neglects to do so, although well aware that the necessity of such compliance is reasonable and urgent; and that he believes that said common council intend to ignore the act entirely, and that such body intend to hold the city election to take place in November, 1889, under the registration and election laws in force before the passage of this act, the same in every respect as if no such act had been passed. The Attorney General therefore asks that this Court issue a peremptory mandamus to compel said common council to resubdivide into election precincts or districts, containing each not more than 300 electors resident therein, such wards of the city of Detroit as may require it, under this act, and to provide suitable and proper means for the registration of electors, upon such subdivision or re

arrangement, as the circumstances may require. The relator, from the records in the city clerk's office, makes a showing of the number of votes cast in each election district now existing in said city, 61 in number, at the November election in 1888. This showing, under the act, would necessitate the creation of 68 additional precincts, making a total of 129.

Section 1 of the act provides:

"That, as soon as possible after this act shall take effect, the common council of the city of Detroit shall by ordinance, if it shall appear that at the election held in November, 1888, or at the election held in April, 1889, more than 500 votes were cast in any election precinct, again divide the ward or wards in which such precinct or precincts may be, and establish new election precincts or districts therein, if necessary, or re-arrange the same so that each precinct shall contain, as near as may be, an equal number of electors, no precinct to contain more than 300 electors resident therein; and as often as it shall appear, after any election thereafter held, that more than 600 votes have been cast in any election precinct, said precinct shall, within six months after said election, again be subdivided, or the precincts of the entire ward be rearranged and divided, so that each precinct shall contain 300 electors, as near as may be, resident therein."

Section 2 provides that for the registration, as provided by the act, to be held in 1889, the inspectors of election selected at the last election shall act, and hereafter four persons for each election precinct, respectively, residents and electors therein, shall be selected in the manner now by law provided for the selection of such inspectors in said city, to act as a board of registration for such precinct, and such board shall elect one of its number as chairman. Said section also constitutes these boards of registration election inspectors, and, in case of the unavoidable absence at any time of any member of the board, the remaining members may temporarily appoint another person to act in his stead until he appears.

The remaining 23 sections of the act relate to the manner and effect of the registration of voters, some of which sections will be noticed hereafter.

The common council of the city of Detroit, in answer to the order to show cause why the writ of mandamus should not issue to compel them to obey this law, says:

1. That a compliance with the law would create in all 129 voting districts; that the expense of such compliance for the approaching municipal election would be over $23,000, and probably $25,000; that the amount to be raised for this purpose upon the assessment and levy for taxes this year is but $6,000; the act was passed after such assessment and levy, and makes no provision for the expense attending and necessary to its execution; that there is no money in the contingent fund of the city, and such expense can lawfully be paid from no other fund.

2. That there are at least 35,000 voters in the city of Detroit, of whom there are at least 5,000 foreign-born electors, who have taken out their naturalization papers, or declared their intention to become citizens, without the State of Michigan; that large numbers of persons so naturalized in other states have voted, from year to year, from five to forty years, within the city of Detroit, and their citizenship has been open and notorious, and their qualifications as electors conceded; that many of them have not now their citizenship papers, but the same have been lost or destroyed; that in many instances it would be impossible to procure certified copies of the same, or any record evidence of their issue; but said electors are able to procure abundant evidence of their exercise of the rights of citizenship, and of electors; that under laws heretofore existing these men have been able to produce sufficient evidence of their rights as electors, but that the act under consideration here practically disfranchises these, at least 1,500, people, who are in fact and in law qualfied voters in said city.

3. That this law will also disfranchise a large number of electors, residents of Detroit, who do business outside of and away from said city, as such persons will necessarily be absent from the city during the days fixed by this act for registration.

4. That it will also disfranchise those persons who from