Hugo Black

“ Surely there is time enough to strike down legislation when its constitutional justification is gone. Invalidating legislation is serious business and it ought not to be indulged in because in a situation not now before the Court, nor even remotely probable, a valid statute may lose its foundation. ”

“ Law reflects distinctions that exist in fact or at least appear to exist in the judgment of legislators those who have the responsibility for making law fit fact. Legislation is essentially empiric. It addresses itself to the more or less crude outside world and not to the neat, logical models of the mind. Classification is inherent in legislation; the Equal Protection Clause has not forbidden it. To recognize marked differences that exist in fact is living law; to disregard practical differences and concentrate on some abstract identities is lifeless logic. ”

“ The sole question before the Court is whether the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, in prohibiting a State from denying any person 'the equal protection of the laws,' has barred Illinois from formulating its domestic policy as it did, in an area concededly within the regulatory power of that State. As is usually true of questions arising under the Equal Protection Clause, the answer will turn on the way in which that clause is conceived. ”