Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/518

 510 FEDERAL REPORTBB. �the Cliinese. Argument and authority, therefore, seem still to be neeessary, and fortunately we are not -without either. From the citations already made, and from many more that might be made from Justices Field, Bradley, Swayne, and otber judges, it appears that to deprive a man of the right to select and follow any lawful occupation — that is, to labor, or contract to labor, if he so desires and can find employment — is to deprive him of both liberty and property, within the meaning of the fourteenth amendment and the act of con- gress. �Says Mr. Justice Bradley : "For the preservation, exercise, and enjoyment of these rights, the individual citizen, as a necessity, must be left free to adopt such calling, profession, or trade, as may seem to him most conducive to that end. Without this right he cannot be a freeman. This right to choose one's calling is an essential part of that liberty which it is the object of government to protect; and a calling, when ckosen, is a man's property and right. Liberty and property are not protected ichere those rights are arhitrarily assailed." 16 Wall. 116. Whatever may be said as to this clause of the amendment, there can be no doubt as to the effect of the act. With respect to the last clause, Mr. Justice Bradley says, of a law which interferes with a man's right to choose and foUow an occupation : "Such a law also deprives those cit- tzens of the equal protection of the laws, contrary to the last clause of the section." Id. 122. And Mr. Justice Swayne : "The equal protection of the laws places ail upon an equal footing of legal equality, and gives the same protection to ail for the pres- ervation of life, liberty and property, and the pwrsuit of happi- ness." Id. 127. �In Ah Kow v. Nunan, 5 Saw. 562; 3 Pacific Coast Law Journal, 413, Mr. Justice Field observes : "But in our country, hostile and discrirninating legislation by a state against persons of any class, sect, creed, or nation, in whatever form it may be expressed, is forbidden by the fourteenth amendment of the constitution. That amendment, in its first section, declares who are citizens of the United States, and then enacts that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge ��� �