by John Marshall Harlan

“ It thus appears that the legislature of Kentucky, after the adoption of the fourteenth amendment and notwithstanding the explicit declaration therein that 'no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,' twice expressly enacted that no citizen of the African race should be competent to serve either as a grand or petit juror. ”

“ The presumption that the state recognized the fourteenth amendment from the date of its adoption to be binding on all its citizens and every department of its government, and to be enforced within its limits without reference to any inconsistent provisions in its own constitution and laws, is overthrown by the fact that twice after the ratification of that amendment the state enacted laws which in terms excluded citizens of African descent, because of their race, from service on grand and petit juries. ”

“ By the same statutes it was provided that all free white persons born in Kentucky or in any other state of the Union, residing in that state, all free white persons naturalized under the laws of the United States residing there, and all persons who have obtained a right to citizenship under former laws, and every child, wherever born, whose father or mother was or shall be a citizen of Kentucky at the birth of such child, shall be deemed citizens of that state. ”