Election doctrine

It seems to be of the very nature of a right to elect one of two things, that actual ownership is not acquired in either, until it be elected; and if the penalty of an offence, be not the positive forfeiture of a particular thing, but one of two things, at the choice of the person claiming the forfeiture, it would seem to be altering, materially, the situation in which that person is placed, to say, that either is vested in him before he makes that choice. If both are vested in him, it is not an election which to take, but which to reject; it is not a forfeiture of one of two things, but a forfeiture of two things, of which one only can be retained.