In re Taylor

Bartol, O. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The mode of admitting attorneys in the Courts of this State, and the qualifications required, are regulated and prescribed by the Acts of Assembly. The provisions on this subject are found in the Code, Art. 11. The first section declares that no attorney, or other person shall practice the law in any of the Courts of this State, without being admitted thereto as herein, directed.

The second section provides that all applications for admission shall be made in open Court. The third section provides that such applications may be made for any ‘ free zohite male citizen of Maryland above the age of twenty-one years” and prescribes the qualifications required, and the proceedings to be had by the Court to determine his fitness and qualifications for admission. This third section was repealed and re-enacted with amendments by the Act of 1872, chap. 91; and this last Act was repealed and ³¹ re-enacted with amendments by the Act of 1876, chap. 264, sec. 3, (found on page 469 of the volume of the Acts of Assembly of that year.) This last Act contains the existing law of the State on this subject, and while it has changed the third section of the Code, before referred to, in some particulars, with respect to the qualifications for admission, and the course of proceeding upon such applications, it contains the. same provision, limiting the privilege of admission to the bar, to white male citizens above the age of twenty-one years. The power and duty of this Court being thus limited and defined by law, nothing is left for us except to deny the present application; unless it can be held that the provision of the Code, limiting the right of admission to the bar to white men, has in some way been abrogated or rendered inoperative; and this it is suggested has been done by force of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, to which it is said this provision in the Code is repugnant.

In support of this position, some reliance has been placed on the ith section of the 2nd Article, which provides that “citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.” It is clear that this section can have no application, as the petitioner is a citizen of this State. Bradwell vs. The State, 16 Wall., 138 . But it is said that the provision of the Code which excludes colored men from the privilege of admission to the bar, is repugnant to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, and is therefore inoperative and void. The first section of that amendment is in these words: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Uo State shall mate or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United ³² States, nor shall any State deprive any person' of life liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” In construing this section, we must follow the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, whose judgment, as the Court of last resort, is final and conclusive upon the question. That Court' was first called on to construe this 14th Amendment in The Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall., 36 . It was there held that the amendment had reference only to the rights and immunities belonging to citizens of the United States as such,