In the case in which it was first called upon to interpret this clause the Court expressed doubt whether "any action of a State not directed by way of discrimination against the Negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision."[1015] That view was soon abandoned. In 1877 it took jurisdiction of a series of cases, popularly known as the Granger cases, in which railroad corporations sought protection under the due process and equal protection clauses.[1016] Although every case was 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 tax, the Supreme Court specifically mentioned the equal protection clause as the source of the federal right, but took no account of the plaintiff's status as a nonresident, beyond a passing reference to the existence of diversity of citizenship.[1023] When a State has admitted a foreign corporation to do business within its borders, that corporation is entitled to equal protection of the laws, but not necessarily to identical treatment with domestic corporations.[1024] A foreign corporation licensed to do business within a State upon payment of an annual license tax is subject to the power of the State to change at any time the conditions of admission for the future. If it fails to pay an increased license tax as a prerequisite to doing business, it is not "within the jurisdiction" and unequal burdens may be laid upon it as compared with other foreign corporations.[1025]
"Equal Protection of the Laws"
Equal protection of the laws means the protection of equal laws.[1026] It forbids all invidious discrimination but does not require identical treatment for all persons without recognition of differences in relevant circumstances. It requires "that equal protection and security should be given to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their personal and civil rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue their happiness and acquire and enjoy property; that they should have like access to the courts of the country for the protection of their persons and property, the prevention and redress of wrongs, and the enforcement of contracts; that no impediment should be interposed to the pursuits of anyone except as applied to the same pursuits by others under like circumstances; that no greater burdens should be laid upon one than are laid upon others in the same calling and condition, and that in the administration of criminal justice no different or higher punishment should be imposed upon one than such as is prescribed to all for like offenses."[1027] The Amendment was not "designed to interfere with the power of the State, sometimes termed its 'police power,' to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace, morals, education, and good order of the people, and to legislate so as to increase the industries of the State, develop its resources, and add to its wealth and prosperity * * * Regulations for these purposes may press with more or less weight upon one than upon another, but they are designed, 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 law which hits the evil where it is most felt will not be overthrown because there are other instances to which it might have been applied.[1040] The State may do what it can to prevent what is deemed an evil and stop short of those cases in which the harm to the few concerned is thought less important than the harm to the public that would ensue if the rules laid down were made mathematically exact.[1041] Exceptions of specified classes will not render the law unconstitutional unless there is no fair reason for the law that would not equally require its extension to the excepted classes.[1042] Incidental individual inequality does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.[1043] One who is not discriminated against cannot attack a statute because it does not go further; and if what it commands of one it commands of all others in the same class, that person cannot complain of matter which the statute does not cover.[1044]
TAXATION
At the outset, the Court did not regard the equal protection clause as having any bearing on taxation.[1045] Before long, however, it took jurisdiction of cases assailing specific tax laws under this provision.[1046] In 1890 it conceded cautiously that "clear and hostile discriminations against particular persons and classes, especially such as are of an unusual character, unknown to the practice of our governments, might be obnoxious to the constitutional prohibition."[1047] In succeeding years the clause has been invoked but sparingly to invalidate State levies. In the field of property taxation, inequality has been condemned only in two classes of cases: (1) intentional discrimination in assessments; and (2) discrimination against foreign corporations. In addition, there are a handful of cases invalidating, because of inequality, State laws imposing income, gross receipts, sales and license taxes.