Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/259

 AS LAWYER

A Negro is eligible to practice law in every State; that is, nothing to the contrary appears in any of the State or Federal statutes now in force. Negroes may be admitted to the bar everywhere upon proving the same qualifications and passing the same examinations as required of other applicants for license. But this has not always been so. The privilege of practicing law in Iowa,[1] for instance, was, until 1870, restricted to white males. In that year it was extended to women and to members of other races than the white. Only one State appears to have considered it needful to guarantee by statutory enactment the right to practice law to the Negro. An act of the Colorado[2] legislature in 1897 reads: "No persons shall be denied the right to practice as aforesaid on account of race or sex."

In 1877, a Negro, with a license to practice law in Massachusetts and the Circuit and District courts of the United States in the city of Baltimore, applied for a license to practice in the State courts of Maryland. The laws of Maryland[3] of 1872 limited the privilege of admission to the bar to white male citizens. The Negro brought suit because he was refused admission to the Maryland bar, and the Court of Appeals of Maryland[4] held that the State had a right to limit the privilege of practicing law to white males, holding that such a limitation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The court said, in part: "The privilege of admission to the office of an attorney cannot be said to be a right or immunity belonging to the citizen, but is governed and regulated by the Legisla