decided
against the corporations on its merits, there was no expression of any
doubt that the corporations were entitled to invoke the protection of
the amendment. Nine years later the issue was settled definitely by an
announcement from the bench by Chief Justice Waite that the Court would
not hear argument on the question whether the equal protection clause
applies to corporations, adding: "We are all of opinion that it
does."[1017] At the same term the Court gave the broadest possible
meaning to the word "person"; it held that: "These provisions are
universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial
jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of
nationality; * * *"[1018] The only qualification of the meaning of
"person" is that introduced by subsequent decisions holding that a
municipal corporation cannot invoke the amendment against its
State.[1019]

"Within Its Jurisdiction"

It is persons "within its jurisdiction" that are entitled to equal
protection from a State. Largely because article IV, section 2, has from
the beginning entitled "Citizens of each State" to the "Privileges and
Immunities of Citizens in the several States," the Court has never
construed the phrase, "within its jurisdiction," in relation to natural
persons.[1020] The cases interpretive of this expression consequently
all concern corporations. In 1898, the Court laid down the rule that a
foreign corporation not doing business in a State under conditions that
subjected it to process issuing from the courts of the State at the
instance of suitors was not "within the jurisdiction," and could not
complain of the preference granted resident creditors in the
distribution of the assets of an insolvent corporation.[1021] That
principle was subsequently qualified, over the dissent of Justices
Brandeis and Holmes, by a holding that a foreign corporation which sued
in a court of a State in which it was not licensed to do business to
recover possession of property wrongfully taken from it in another State
was "within the jurisdiction" and could not be subjected to unequal
burdens in the maintenance of the suit.[1022] The test of amenability to
service of process within the State was ignored in a recent case dealing
with discriminatory assessment of property belonging to a nonresident
individual. In holding that a federal court had jurisdiction to
entertain a suit for a declaratory judgment to invalidate the