no Quo Warranto to try the title of the President of the US March 6, 2009
Posted by Exploring the Natural Born Citizen Clause in Legal Remedies, Quo Warranto.trackback
ยง 468a. Writs of quo warranto in the District Courts. The better opinion is that the District Courts of the United States have original jurisdiction to grant the writ of quo warranto only when specifically authorized by statute; and that no writ of quo warranto can issue from them to try the title to the office of President of the United States. The District Courts of the United States have jurisdiction of all suits to recover possession of any office, except that of elector of President or Vice President, Representative in or Delegate to Congress, or member of a State legislature, authorized by law to be brought, wherein it appears that the sole question touching the title to such office arises out of the denial of the right to vote to any citizen offering to vote, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude: Provided, That such jurisdiction shall extend only so far as to determine the rights of the parties to such office by reason of the denial of the right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, and secured by any law, to enforce the right of citizens of the United States to vote in all the States.” * The Revised Statutes provide that “whenever any person holds office, except as a member of Congress or of some State legislature, contrary to the provisions of the third section of the fourteenth article of amendment of the Constitution, the district attorney for the district in which such person holds office shall proceed against him by writ of quo warranto, returnable to the Circuit or District Court of the United States in such district, and prosecute the same to the removal of such person from office..”8 This applied to persons disqualified from holding office by the Fourteenth Amendment, whose disabilities had not been removed.
Source: Roger Foster, Treatise on Federal Practice, Civil and Criminal, Including Practice in Bankruptcy, Admiralty, Patent Cases, Foreclosure of Railway Mortgages, Suits Upon Claims Against the United States: Proceedings Before the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, Callaghan & company, 1921
