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![handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0435 and id is 1 raw text is: Oct. 1879.] VIRGNMIA v. RIVES. 318
VimGunIA v. Rrv-zs.
1. Sect. 641 of the Revised Statutes, which provides for the removal into the
Federal court of any civil suit or prosecution commenced in any State
court, for any cause whatsoever, against any person who is denied or can-
not enforce in the judicial tribunals of the State, or in the part of the State
where such suit or prosecution is pending, any right secured to him by
any law providing for the equal civil rights of citizens of the United States,
&c., examined in connection with sects. 1977 and 1978. Held, that the
object of these statutes, as of the Constitution which authorized them, was
to place, in respect to civil rights, the colored race upon a level with the
white. They made the rights and responsibilities, civil and criminal, of the
two races exactly the same.
2. The prohibitions of tle Fourteenth Amendment have exclusive reference to
State action. It is the State which is prohibited from denying to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, and, conse-
quently, the statutes founded upon the amendment, and partially enumerat-
ing what civil rights the colored man shall enjoy equally with the white
are intended for protection against State infringement of those rights
Sect. 641 was also intended to protect them against State action, and
against that alone.
3. A State may exert her authority through different agencies, and those prohi
bitions extend to her action denying equal protection of the laws, whether
it be action by one of these agencies or by another. Congress, by virtue of
the fifth section of the Fourteenth Amendment, may enforce the prohibi-
tions whenever they are disregarded by either the Legislative, the Execu-
tive, or the Judicial Department of the State. The mode of enforcement is
left to its discretion. It may secure the right, that is, enforce its recogni-
tion, by removing the case from a State court, in which it is denied, into a
Federal court, where it will be acknowledged.
4. But the Fourteenth Amendment is broader than sect. 641, as the latter does
not apply to all cases in which the equal protection of the laws may be
denied to a defendant. The removal thereby authorized is before trial or
final hearing. But the violation of the constitutional prohibitions, when
committed by the judicial action of a State, may be, and generally will be,
after the trial or final hearing has commenced. It is during the trial of
final hearing the defendant is denied equality of legal protection, and not
until then. Nor can he know until then that the equal protection of the
laws will not be extended to him. Certainly not until then can he affirm
that it is denied. To such a case - that is, to judicial infractions of the
constitutional amendment after the trial has commenced-sect. 641 has
no applicability. It was not intended to reach such cases. They were
left to the revisory power of this court.
6. Therefore, the denial or inability to enforce in the judicial tribunals of a State
rights secured to a defendant by any law providing for the equal civil rights
of all persons citizens of the United States, of which sect. 641 speaks, is
primarily, if not exclusively, a denial of such rights, or an inability to
enforce them, resulting from the Constitution or laws of the State, rather](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.slavery/ussccases0435&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)