within the jurisdiction of the United States. In _Strauder_ v.
_West Virginia_,[14] and _Neal_ v. _Delaware_,[15] the court had taken
the position that exemption from race discrimination is a right of a
citizen of the United States. Negroes charged that members of their
race had been excluded from a jury because of their color. The court
was then of the opinion that such action contravened the Constitution
and, as was held in the case of _Prigg_ v. _Pennsylvania_, declared
it essential to the national supremacy that the agent of the body
politic should have the power to enforce and protect any right granted
by the Constitution.

In _Ex Parte Virginia_ the position was the same. In this case one
Cole, a county judge, was charged by the laws of Virginia with the
duty of selecting grand and petit jurors. The laws of that State did
not permit him in the performance of that duty to make any distinction
as to race. He was indicted in a Federal court under the act of 1875,
for making such discriminations. The attorney-general of Virginia
contended that the State had done its duty, and had not authorized or
directed that county judge to do what he was charged with having done;
that the State had not denied to the Negro race the equal protection
of the laws; and that consequently the act of Cole must be deemed his
individual act, in contravention of the will of the State. Plausible
as this argument was, it failed to convince the court; and after
emphasizing the fact that the Fourteenth Amendment had reference to
the acts of the political body denominated a State, "by whatever
instruments or in whatever modes that action may be taken" and that a
State acts by its legislative, executive and judicial authorities, and
can act in no other way, it said:

"The constitutional provision, therefore, must mean that no agency of
the State, or of the officers or agents by whom its powers are
exerted, shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws. Whoever, by virtue of public position under a
State government, deprives another of property, life, or liberty
without due process of law, or denies or takes away the equal
protection of the laws, violates the constitutional inhibitions; and,
as he acts under the name and for the State, and is clothed with the
State power, his act is that of the State. This must be so, or the
constitutional prohibition has no meaning. Then the State has clothed
one of its age