The case of _Williams_ v. _Mississippi_ was more interesting. The law of that State prescribed the qualifications of voters and of grand and petit juries and invested the administrative officers with a large discretion in determining what citizens have the necessary qualifications. As it appeared that in the use of their discretion they would exclude Negroes from such juries it was contended that the act of Mississippi was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court held, however, that the Mississippi law could not be held repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment merely on a showing that the law might operate as a discrimination against the Negro race, in absence of proof of an actual discrimination in the case under consideration. This ground has often proved convenient for the Supreme Court of the United States in dodging the question whether or not the Negroes must be protected in the rights guaranteed them by the Constitution. This case was decided in 1897 and two years later Mr. Justice Gray, giving the opinion of the court in the case of _Carter_ v. _Texas_,[54] said that the exclusion of all persons of African race from a grand jury which finds an indictment against a Negro in a State court, when they are excluded solely because of their race or color denies him the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, whether such exclusion is done through the action of the legislature, through the courts, or through the executive or administrative officers of the State. This was substantially the position taken in the case of _Strauder_ v. _West Virginia_ twenty years earlier. The Negroes received some encouragement, too, from the decision of _Rogers_ v. _Alabama_.[55] It was held that there had been a denial of the equal protection of the laws by a ruling of a State court upon the motion to quash an indictment on account of the exclusion of Negroes from the grand jury list, which motion, though because of its being in two printed octavos, was struck from the files under the color of local practice for prolixity, contained an allegation that certain provisions of the newly adopted State constitution, claimed to have the effect of disfranchising Negroes because of their race, when such action worked as a consideration in the minds of the jury commissioners in reaching their decision. The court held in _Martin_ v. _The State of Texas_, however,[56] that a discrimination against Negroes because of their race in the selection of grand or petit jurors as forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment is not shown by written motion to quash, respectively, the indictment of the panel of petit jurors, charging such discrimination where no evidence was introduced to establish the facts stated in the omissions. It is not sufficient merely to prove that no persons of color were on the jury.