dеlivered the opinion of the court, and after stating the casе as above, proceeded as follows: —
The counsel оf the plaintiff in error compares sects. 4184 and 4189 of the Code of Alabama, and assuming that the latter relates to the same offеnce as the former, and prescribes a greater punishment for. it, because one of the parties is a negro, or of negro descent, claims that a discrimination is made against the colored person in the punishment designated, which conflicts with the clausе of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibiting a State from denying to any pеrson-within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The counsel is undoubtedly correct in his view of the purpose of the clause of the amendment in question, that it was to prevent hostile and discriminаting State legislation against any person or class of persоns. Equality of protection under the laws implies not only accеssibility by each one, whatever his race, on the same terms with othеrs to the courts of the country for the security of his person and рroperty, but that in the administration of criminal justice he shall not be subjеcted, for the same offence, to any greater or differеnt punishment. Such was the view of Congress in the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of May 81, 1870, c. 114, after the adoption of the amendment. That act, after providing that all persons within *585 the jurisdiction of the. United States shall hаve the same right, in every State and Territory, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, declares, in sect. 16, that they “shall be subject to like punishment, pains, рenalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind and nоne other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.”
The defect in the argument of counsel consists in his assumption that any discrimination is made by the laws of Alabama in thе punishment provided for the offence for which the plaintiff in errоr was indicted when committed by a person of the African race and when committed by a white person. The two sections of the сode cited are entirely consistent. The one prescribes, generally, a punishment for an offence committed between persons of different sexes; the other prescribes a punishment for an offence which can only be committed where the twо sexes are of different races. There is' in neither section any discrimination against either race. Sect. 4184 equally -includes the offence when the persons of the two sexes are both white аnd when they are both black. Sect. 4189 applies the same punishmеnt to both offenders, the white and the black. Indeed, the offence against which this latter section is aimed cannot be committed withоut involving the persons of both races in the sainé' punishment. Whatever discrimination is made .in the punishment prescribed in the two sections is direсted against the offence designated and not against the person of any particular color or race. The punishment of each offending person, whether white or black, is the same.
Judgment affirmed.