ecomb, 19 How.,
9. _Ex parte_ Garland, 4 Wall., 378.)

From these cases the conclusion is irresistible, that the
profession of the law, like the clerical profession and that of
medicine, is an avocation open to every citizen of the United
States. And while the Legislature may prescribe qualifications
for entering upon this pursuit, they can not, under the guise of
fixing qualifications, exclude a class of citizens from admission
to the bar. The Legislature may say at what age candidates shall
be admitted; may elevate or depress the standard of learning
required. But a qualification, to which a whole class of citizens
never can attain, is not a regulation of admission to the bar,
but is, as to such citizens, a prohibition. For instance, a State
Legislature could not, in enumerating the qualifications, require
the candidate to be a white citizen. This would be the exclusion
of all colored citizens, without regard to age, character, or
learning. Such an act would abridge the rights of all colored
citizens, by denying them admission into one of the avocations
which this court has declared is alike open to every one. I
presume it will be admitted that such an act would be void. I am
certain this court would declare it void. And I challenge the
most astute mind to draw any distinction between such an act and
a custom, usage, or law of a State, which denies this privilege
to all female citizens without regard to age, character, or
learning. If the Legislature may, under pretense of fixing
qualifications, declare that no female citizen shall be permitted
to practice law, they may as well declare that no colored citizen
shall practice law. It should be borne in mind that the only
provision in the Constitution of the United States which secures
to colored male citizens the privilege of admission to the bar,
or the pursuit of the other ordinary avocations of life, is that
provision that

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of a citizen.

If this provision does not open all the professions, all the
avocations, all the methods by which a man may pursue happiness,
to the colored as well as the white man, then the Legislatures of
the States may exclude colored men from all the honorable