conclusion that that decision was made with any desire or purpose on the part of the board to discriminate against any of the colored school children of the county on account of their race. The state court did not deem the action of the board of education in suspending temporarily and for economic reasons the high school for colored children a sufficient reason why injunction should lie to restrain from maintaining an existing high school for white children. It rejected the suggestion that the board proceeded in bad faith or had abused the discretion with which it was invested by the statute under which it proceeded or had acted in hostility to the colored race. Under the circumstances it cannot be said that this action of the state court was, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, a denial by the state of the equal protection of the laws. Cumming v. County Board of Education, 175 U. S. 528.

§ 336. Negroes as grand jurors. A denial of the equal protection of the laws is made by a ruling of a state court upon motion to quash an indictment because of the exclusion of negroes from the grand jury lists, by which such motion, though but two printed octavo pages in length, was struck from the files, under the color of local practice for prolixity, because it contained an allegation that certain provisions of the newly adopted state constitution, claimed to have the effect of disfranchising negroes because of their race, worked as a reason and consideration in the minds of the jury commissioners for their action. It is a necessary and well-settled rule that the exercise of jurisdiction by the Supreme Court to protect constitutional rights cannot be declined when it is plain that the fair result of a decision is to deny the rights. It is well known that the court will decide for itself whether a contract was made as well as whether the obligation of the contract has been impaired. On the same ground there can be no doubt that if full faith and credit were denied to a judgment rendered in another

state upon a suggestion of a want of jurisdiction, without evidence to warrant the finding, the court would enforce the constitutional requirement. The result of the earlier cases may be summed up in the words of the judgment delivered by Mr. Justice Gray: "Whenever, by any action of a state, whether through its legislature, through its courts, or through its executive or administrative officers, all persons of the African race are excluded, solely because of their race or color, from serving as grand jurors in the criminal prosecution of a person of the African race, the equal protection of the laws is denied to him, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States." Carter v. Texas, 177 U. S. 442; Rogers v. Alabama, 192 U. S. 226.

§ 337. Negroes as jurors. A discrimination against negroes because of their race, in the selection of grand or petit jurors, forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment, is not shown by verified written motions to quash respectively the indictment and the panel of petit jurors, charging such discrimination, where no evidence was either introduced or offered to establish the facts stated in the motions. If upon the hearing of the motions the facts stated therein had been established by affirmative proof, or if the trial court had refused to admit evidence to prove them, the Supreme Court would not have hesitated to reverse the judgment. To exclude all persons of the African race solely because of their race or color, to serve as grand jurors in the criminal prosecution of a person of the African race, denies to him the equal protection of the laws, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the accused in each of his written motions prayed the court to hear evidence thereon, it does not appear that he introduced any evidence whatever to prove discrimination against his race because of their color, or made any actual offer of evidence in support of either motion. The motions were not supported by any competent evidence; consequently, they cannot be held to

have been erroneously denied. The absence of any proof in the record is fatal to the charge of the accused that his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were violated. Martin v. Texas, 200 U. S. 316.

§ 338. Right of women to practice law in state courts. The right to practice. law in the state courts is not a privilege or immunity of a citizen of the United States within the meaning of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment. The power of a state to prescribe the qualifications for admission to the bar of its own courts, is unaffected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Supreme Court cannot inquire into the reasonableness or propriety of the rules it may prescribe. Mr. Justice Miller in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, said: "Unless we are wholly and radically mistaken in the principles on which those cases (the Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36) are decided, the right to control and regulate the granting of license to practice law in the courts of a state is one of those powers which are not transferred for its protection to the Federal Government, and its exercise is in no manner controlled by citizenship of the United States in the party seeking such license." Bradwell v. Illinois, 16 Wall. 130.

§ 339. The civil rights cases. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides: "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." The amendment was submitted to the states by a resolution of Congress passed June 16, 1866, and was ratified according to a proclamation of the Secretary of State dated July 28, 1868. By virtue of the fifth section of the amendment, Congress, by act approved March 1, 1875, 18 St. L. 335, entitled "An act to protect citizens in their civil and legal rights," enacted "That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of

inns, public conveyances on land and water, theatres, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude." Severe penalties were provided for denying the full and equal privileges accorded by the law.

In the Civil Rights cases the court held that the Fourteenth Amendment is prohibitory upon the states only, and the legislation authorized to be adopted by Congress for enforcing it is not direct legislation on the matters respecting which the states are prohibited from making or enforcing certain laws, or doing certain acts, but is corrective legislation, such as may be necessary or proper for counteracting and redressing the effect of such laws or acts. The first section of the Fourteenth Amendment declares that: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It is state action of a particular character that is prohibited. Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject matter of the amendment. It has a deeper and broader scope. It nullifies and makes void all state legislation, and state action of every kind, which impairs the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, or which injures them in life, liberty or property without due process of law, or which denies to any of them, the equal protection of the laws. The last section of the amendment invests Congress with power to enforce it by appropriate legislation, to adopt appropriate legislation for correcting the effects of such prohibited state laws and state acts, and thus to render them effectually null, void and innocuous. This is the legislative power conferred upon Congress, and this is the whole of it. It does not invest Congress with power to legislate upon subjects which are within the domain

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of state legislation; but to provide modes of relief against state legislation or state action, of the kind referred to. It does not authorize Congress to create a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights; but to provide modes of redress against the operation of state laws, and the action of state officers, executive or judicial, when these are subversive of the fundamental rights specified in the amendment. Positive rights and privileges are undoubtedly secured by the Fourteenth Amendment; but they are secured by way of prohibition against state laws and state proceedings affecting those rights and privileges, and by power given by Congress to legislate for the purpose of carrying such prohibition into effect; and such legislation must, necessarily, be predicated upon such supposed state laws or state proceedings, and be directed to the correction of their operation and effect. Until some state law has been passed or some state action through its officers or agents has been taken, adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, no legislation of the United States under said amendment, nor any proceedings under such legislation, can be called into activity; for the prohibitions of the amendment are against state laws and acts done under state authority. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3.