87 S.E.2d 749 (Va. 1955)
The appellee, a white person duly domiciled in Virginia, brought suit against the appellant, a Chinese non-resident of the State at the time of the institution of the suit.1 The material facts are not in dispute.2
On June 26, 1952, the parties left Virginia to be married in North Carolina.3 They were married in that State and immediately returned to Norfolk, Virginia, where they lived together as husband and wife.4 It is conceded that they left Virginia to be married in North Carolina for the purpose of evading the Virginia law which forbade their marriage.5
The suit was brought under section 20-54 of the Code of Virginia, 1950, which is part of an act to preserve racial integrity enacted by the General Assembly and approved March 20, 1924. The trial court entered a decree holding the marriage between the appellant and the appellee to be void under that statute. The appellant appealed from that decree.6
Whether the trial court was constitutionally without the power to annul the marriage on the basis of race?7
If the Federal Constitution forbids enforcement of the statute under which the court acted, it likewise forbids enforcement of the same prohibition by independent judicial action.8 A State acts by its legislative, its executive or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other way.9 The judicial act of the highest court of the state, in authoritatively construing and enforcing its laws, is the act of the state.10
No. The trial court possessed constitutional power to annul the marriage on the basis of race because the governing statute is valid under the Fourteenth Amendment.11
The first assignment of error challenged the trial court's jurisdiction on constitutional grounds.12 Because the statute itself withstands constitutional attack, the decree of annulment constitutes a valid judicial act of the state rather than an independent violation of federal rights.13
The trial court was not constitutionally without the power to annul the marriage on the basis of race.14
Whether the statute in question is beyond the power of the State to enact under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment?15
Marriage, as creating the most important relation in life, as having more to do with the morals and civilization of a people than any other institution, has always been subject to the control of the Legislature.16 If the prevention of miscegenetic marriages is a proper governmental objective, and within the competency of the State to effect, then the statute is a valid enactment unless the classification made by the statute is arbitrary and without reasonable relation to the purpose intended to be effected.17
No. The statute is not beyond the power of the State to enact under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.1819
The classification by race is not arbitrary.20 In the absence of any evidence suggesting that the classification lacks a reasonable relation to the statutory purpose, the presumption of reasonableness is very strong, and the statute therefore remains a valid exercise of state power to regulate marriage in the interest of public welfare.21
The statute is not beyond the power of the State to enact under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.