_Section 5510._ Every person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, subjects or causes to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right, privilege, or immunities, secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States or to different punishments, pains or penalties, on account of such inhabitants being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment not more than one year, or by both. The decision in this case was in substance that Congress cannot make it an offense against the United States for individuals to combine or conspire to prevent even by force, citizens of African descent, solely because of their race, from earning a living, although the right to earn one's living in all legal ways and to make lawful contracts in reference thereto is a vital point of freedom established by the Constitution. Section 5508 had been upheld in _Ex Parte Yarborough_,[74] and in the case of _Logan_ v. the _United States_[75] the court referred to this section as having been upheld in _Ex Parte Yarborough_. In _United States_ v. _Reese_, moreover,[76] Justice Waite said in 1875, speaking for the court, "The rights and immunities created by or dependent upon the Constitution of the United States can be protected by Congress. The form and the manner of the protection may be such as Congress in the legitimate exercise of its legislative discretion shall provide. This may be varied to meet the necessities of the particular right to be protected." "The whole scope and effect of this series of decisions," continued the court, "was that, while certain fundamental rights recognized and declared but not granted or created, in some of the amendments to the Constitution are thereby guaranteed only against violation or abridgement by the United States, or by the States, as the case may be, and cannot, therefore, be affirmatively enforced by Congress against unlawful causes of individuals; yet that every right created by, arising under, or dependent upon the Constitution of the United States may be protected and enforced by Congress by such means and in such manner as Congress in the exercise of the correlative duty of protection, or of the legislative powers conferred upon it by the Constitution, may in its discretion deem most eligible and best adopted to attain the object." This doctrine was sustained also by the decision in the case of _United States_ v. _Waddell_,[77] and _Motes_ v. _United States_.[78] Here it was emphatically stated that Congress might pass any law necessary or proper for carrying out any power conferred upon it by the Constitution.