But a judicial construction of the Constitution is wholly completely different from a mere train in philology. A coloured citizen, authorized to hold property in Massachusetts, emigrating to South Carolina, where all coloured individuals were excluded from such proper, derived no aid, in this respect, from the Constitution of the United States, however was compelled to submit to all of the incapacities laid by the legal guidelines of that State upon free persons of coloration born and residing therein. In discussing this topic, we’re compelled to make use of the words “privileges and immunities” and the phrase “rights” in the exact sense through which they’re employed in the Constitution. Such an act would abridge the rights of all coloured residents, by denying them admission into one of the avocations which this court has declared is alike open to every one. It recognizes the right of a State to exclude a portion of its residents, and solely restrains that power as far as to supply that citizens shall not be excluded on account of race, shade, or earlier situation of servitude. This can be the exclusion of all coloured residents, without regard to age, character, or learning.

In every different case, the facility of exclusion acknowledged by the XIV. In the primary place, it is to be noticed that the idea of illustration in a State, which is the whole number of persons-male and female, adults and infants-is just to be lowered when the State shall exclude a portion “of the male inhabitants of such State.” The exclusion of female inhabitants, and infants below the age of twenty-one years, doesn’t impact a reduction of the premise of illustration in such State. But when the appropriate to vote at any election, and so forth., is denied to any of the male inhabitants, being twenty-one years of age, and so on., the basis of illustration therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male residents shall bear to the whole variety of male residents twenty-one years of age in such State. The basis of illustration therein shall be decreased within the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male residents in such State.

In the proportion which the number of such (excluded) male residents shall bear to the entire variety of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. And whereas the Legislature may prescribe skills for entering upon this pursuit, they cannot, underneath the guise of fixing qualifications, exclude a class of residents from admission to the bar. As an example, a State Legislature couldn’t, in enumerating the skills, require the candidate to be a white citizen. But say, as an example, the female breeder dies. XV. Amendments distinguish between privileges and rights; and it should be confessed that it’s paradoxical to say, because the XIV. I come now to the narrower and precise question before the court: Can a female citizen, duly qualified in respect of age, character, and studying, claim, under the XIV. And i challenge probably the most astute mind to attract any distinction between such an act and a customized, usage, or legislation of a State, which denies this privilege to all female residents with out regard to age, character, or studying.

It can not be denied, that the suitable or energy of a State to exclude a portion of its male residents from the best to vote, is acknowledged by this second part; from which it follows, that the best to vote is just not one of many “privileges or immunities” which the first section declares shall not be abridged by any State. If the Legislature might, below pretense of fixing qualifications, declare that no feminine citizen shall be permitted to follow regulation, they could as nicely declare that no coloured citizen shall practice law. From these circumstances the conclusion is irresistible, that the career of the legislation, just like the clerical occupation and that of drugs, is an avocation open to every citizen of the United States. It is clear that there are particular “privileges and immunities” which belong to a citizen of the United States as such; otherwise it could be nonsense for the XIV. Whatever are the privileges and immunities of a citizen within the State of new York, such citizen, emigrating, carries them with him into another State of the Union. Unlike African elephants, which rarely use their forefeet for anything apart from digging or scraping soil, Asian elephants are extra agile at utilizing their feet together with the trunk for manipulating objects.