Ex+parte+Virginia

=Ex parte Virginia= 100 U.S. 339 (1880)

This case is somewhat unusual in that it involves a habeas corpus petition by a judge of a county court in Virginia, arrested for excluding African Americans from jury service solely on account of their race.

The judge was taken into custody for violation of a federal statute making it a misdemeanor to exclude any person from jury service on the basis of race. That the judge had violated the statute was undisputed; the question was whether this statute was within Congress's constitutional power.

How broad is Congress's Fourteenth Amendment power?

"One great purpose of the [Thirteenth and Fourteenth] amendments was to raise the colored race from that condition of inferiority and servitude in which most of them had preciously stood, into perfect equality of civil rights with all other persons within the jurisdiction of the States. They were intended to take away all possibility of oppression by law because of race or color. They were intended to be, what they really are, limitations of the power of the States and enlargements of the power of Congress."

The Court found that through Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress's power has been specifically enlarged to prohibit discrimination.

"Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is, adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view, whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibitions they contain, and to secure to all persons the enjoyment of perfect equality of civil rights and the equal protection of the laws against State denial or invasion, if not prohibited, is brought within the domain of Congressional power."

The Court did not cite //McCulloch v. Maryland//, 4 Wheat 316 (1819), for this proposition, but it basically echoed //McCulloch//'s language to expand Section 2 power to include any measure passed with Congress with an intent to stamp out discrimination.