We have not overlooked the fact that the fourth section of the
act now under consideration has been held by this court to be
constitutional. That section declares “that no citizen, possessing all
other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law, shall be
disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the
United States, or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude; and any officer or other person charged with
any duty in the selection or summoning of jurors, who shall exclude or
fail to summon any citizen for the cause aforesaid, shall, on conviction
thereof, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be fined not more than
five thousand dollars.” In _Ex parte Virginia_, 100 U. S. 339, it was
held that an indictment against a State officer under this section for
excluding persons of color from the jury list is sustainable. But a
moment’s attention to its terms will show that the section is entirely
corrective in its character. Disqualifications for service on juries are
only created by the law, and the first part of the section is aimed at
certain disqualifying laws, namely, those which make mere race or color
a disqualification, and the second clause is directed against those
who, assuming to use the authority of the State government, carry into
effect such a rule of disqualification. In the Virginia case, the State
through its officer enforced a rule of disqualification which the law
was intended to abrogate and counteract. Whether the statute book of
the State actually laid down any such rule of disqualification or not,
the State through its officer enforced such a rule; and it is against
such State action through its officers and agents that the last clause of
the section is directed. This aspect of the law was deemed sufficient to
divest it of any unconstitutional character, and makes it differ widely
from the first and second sections of the same act which we are now
considering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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