|Strauder v. West Virginia 100 U.S. 1 [ Strong ] [ Field ]
Strauder v. West Virginia ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS
OF THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA 1. The Fourteenth Amendment of the
Constitution of the United States considered, and held to be one
of a series of constitutional provisions having a common
purpose, namely to secure to a recently emancipated race, which
had been held in slavery through many generations, all the civil
rights that the superior race enjoy, and to give to it the
protection of the general government, in the enjoyment of such
rights, whenever they should be denied by the States. Whether
the amendment had other, and if so what, purposes not decided.
2. The amendment not only gave citizenship and the privileges of
citizenship to persons of color, but denied to any State the
power to withhold from them the equal protection of the laws,
and invested Congress with power, by appropriate legislation, to
enforce its provisions. 3. The amendment, although prohibitory
in term, confers by ne