Legal Definition and Related Resources of Equal Protection Of The Laws

The fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States provides, among other things , that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. This provision has acquired a settled judicial interpretation namely that the rights of all persons must rest on the same rule under similar circumstances and that it does not require things which are different in fact or opinion to be treated in law as though they are the same. See for example Pigner v Slate of Texas, 310 U.S. 141, 60 S.Ct. 879. since the same set of rules applied equally to all persons and things without regard to their situation will work injustice, it is now well settled that this clause does not prevent the States from resorting to classification for purposes of legislation , but classification must be reasonable , not arbitrary , and rest upon some ground of difference having fair and sub-stantial relation to object of legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.

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Equal Protection Of The Laws in Historical Law

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See also

A guarantee made by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that neither… (Read more)