signed, not
to impose unequal or unnecessary restrictions upon anyone, but to
promote, with as little individual inconvenience as possible, the
general good. Though, in many respects, necessarily special in their
character they do not furnish just ground of complaint if they operate
alike upon all persons and property under the same circumstances and
conditions."[1028] The due process and equal protection clauses overlap
but the spheres of protection they offer are not coterminous. The due
process clause "tends to secure equality of law in the sense that it
makes a required minimum of protection for everyone's right of life,
liberty, and property, which the Congress or the legislature may not
withhold. * * * The guaranty [of equal protection] was aimed at undue
favor and individual or class privilege, on the other hand, and at
hostile discrimination or the oppression of inequality, on the
other."[1029]

Legislative Classifications

Although the equal protection clause requires laws of like application
to all similarly situated, the legislature is allowed wide discretion in
the selection of classes.[1030] Classification will not render a State
police statute unconstitutional so long as it has a reasonable
basis;[1031] its validity does not depend on scientific or marked
differences in things or persons or in their relations. It suffices if
it is practical.[1032] While a State legislature may not arbitrarily
select certain individuals for the operation of its statutes, a
selection is obnoxious to the equal protection clause only if it is
clearly and actually arbitrary and not merely possibly so.[1033] A
substantial difference, in point of harmful results, between two methods
of operation, justifies a classification and the burden is on the
attacking party to prove it unreasonable.[1034] There is a strong
presumption that discriminations in State legislation are based on
adequate grounds.[1035] Every state of facts sufficient to sustain a
classification which can reasonably be conceived of as having existed
when the law was adopted will be assumed.[1036]

There is no doctrinaire requirement that legislation should be couched
in all-embracing terms.[1037] A police statute may be confined to the
occasion for its existence.[1038] The equal protection clause does not
mean that all occupations that are called by the same name must be
treated in the same way.[1039] The legislature is free to recognize
degrees of harm; a la