The enumeration of some of the specific applications which the requirement of equal protection of the laws has received will sufficiently illustrate its scope and intent.

The provision of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees to individuals and to corporations that they shall not by state law be excluded from the enjoyment of privileges which other persons and corporations similarly circumstanced enjoy, or that they may not have imposed upon them burdens which others similarly circumstanced are free from. But no one is guaranteed that in fact, through the fortuitous operation of a law, which in itself is not discriminative, a special burden may not be imposed, or the enjoyment of a privilege taken away. Thus, for example, in Strauder v. West Virginia15 a state law was held invalid which denied to members of the colored race the right to act upon juries, the court saying, "the law in the State shall be the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal before the laws of the State." But in Virginia v. Rives16 and other cases17 it is held that the fact that it happens that no negroes are in fact drawn upon the jury, or vice versa, that no white are so drawn is not constitutionally objectionable, unless it affirmatively appear that the state officials intrusted with the administration of the law arbitrarily and with intent have given an unequal and discriminative effect to the law.18

15 100 U. S. 303; 25 L. ed. 664.

16 100 U. S. 313: 25 L. ed. 667.

17 Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370: 26 L. ed. 567; Bush v. Kentucky, 107 U. S. 110; 1 Sup. Ct. Rep. 625; 27 L. ed. 354; Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U. S. 213; 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 5S3; 42 L. ed. 1012.