Walker v. Whitehead was a United States Supreme Court case that dealt with the issue of whether a state could constitutionally require a person to pay a fee in order to obtain a license to practice law. The case was brought by William Walker, a black man who had been denied a license to practice law in the state of Georgia due to his race. Walker argued that the fee requirement violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court held that the fee requirement did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. The Court reasoned that the fee requirement was a reasonable exercise of the state's police power and was not intended to discriminate against any particular class of persons. The Court also noted that the fee requirement was not a barrier to entry into the legal profession, as it was not prohibitively expensive. Ultimately, the Supreme Court held that the fee requirement was constitutional and did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. This decision was significant in that it established that states could impose reasonable fees on individuals seeking to practice law, so long as the fees were not intended to discriminate against any particular class of persons.

In Walker v. Whitehead, the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a state court had jurisdiction over an action brought by a citizen of one state against another in which the parties were citizens of different states. The majority opinion held that it did not have such jurisdiction and dismissed the case. In his dissent, Justice Field argued that under Article III Section 2 of the Constitution, Congress has granted federal courts exclusive original jurisdiction over cases between citizens of different states and therefore any other court would lack authority to hear such cases. He further argued that this interpretation is consistent with prior decisions from both state and federal courts as well as with public policy considerations regarding interstate disputes. As such, he concluded that there should be no distinction made between actions brought in state or federal courts when it comes to matters involving citizens from two separate states; rather they should all be heard in federal court regardless of where they are filed initially.