How did the Supreme Court rulings in the Slaughterhouse Cases affect the status of African Americans?

Annotation

Primary Holding

The Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is limited to federal citizenship rather than extending to state citizenship.

Facts

Like other states and cities across the country, Louisiana passed a law that restricted slaughterhouse operations in New Orleans to a single central corporation. This measure was deemed necessary to protect the health of the city's residents, since animal blood and waste products had flowed down the Mississippi River from slaughterhouses to the city and caused cholera outbreaks. Pursuant to the law, the Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company received a charter to run a slaughterhouse downstream from the city. It planned to rent sections of its space to other butchers for a fee set by the legislature. No other areas around the city were permitted for slaughtering animals over the next 25 years, and existing slaughterhouses would be closed. The legislature sought to reduce the potential for a harmful monopoly by setting penalties should Crescent City refuse to rent space to any entity.

A group of butchers who were part of the Butchers' Benevolent Association argued that they would lose their right to practice their trade and earn a livelihood if this monopoly were permitted. They also argued that it was unfair to the residents of the city to restrict butchers to a small group. After being denied in state court, they appealed on constitutional grounds of the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been passed just a few years before. It is interesting to note that their attorney, John A. Campbell, had sympathized with the Confederacy during the Civil War and brought several cases during Reconstruction to challenge the Fourteenth Amendment.

Attorneys

• John A. Campbell (plaintiffs)

Opinions

Majority

• Samuel Freeman Miller (Author)
• Nathan Clifford
• William Strong
• Ward Hunt
• David Davis

Not yet ready to extend due process from procedural to substantive grounds, Miller limited the scope of the Privileges or Immunities Clause with respect to the state's ability to exercise its police powers. He argued that, like the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was designed to protect the rights of former slaves. Holding that there is a difference between being a citizen of the U.S. and being a citizen of a state, Miller pointed out that the plaintiffs referred only to the privileges and immunities that were due to citizens of the U.S. and assumed that these were the same as those due to citizens of states. In rejecting this interpretation, he relied on the Fourteenth Amendment's text and its reference to "citizens of the United States and of the State where they reside" to support a dual notion of citizenship. Any rights guaranteed by the Privileges or Immunities Clause were limited to areas controlled by the federal government, such as access to ports and waterways, the right to run for federal office, and certain rights affecting safety on the seas. As these examples make clear, the range of these rights was extremely narrow and unlikely to be relevant in most situations.

Dissent

• Stephen Johnson Field (Author)
• Salmon Portland Chase
• Noah Haynes Swayne
• Joseph P. Bradley

Criticizing the majority for essentially eviscerating the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Field argued that the Fourteenth Amendment could not be construed as according protection only to former slaves. He believed that it incorporated strands of common-law doctrine and needed to be interpreted outside the Civil War context. While his view did not prevail in this instance, it would become the widely accepted position on the Fourteenth Amendment in modern jurisprudence.

Dissent

• Joseph P. Bradley (Author)

Dissent

• Noah Haynes Swayne (Author)

Case Commentary

Privileges and immunities should be construed to protect citizens from incursions by the federal government rather than state governments. There was no deprivation of a property right here based on the negative effect on certain businesses. This case represented an early attempt by the Court to curtail the scope of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments soon after Congress had created them. While its interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment overall has expanded significantly, the Slaughterhouse Cases remain valid law and the Privileges or Immunities Clause meaningless in most circumstances.

Unfortunately for Crescent City, Louisiana would expressly prohibit this type of monopoly through a revision to its constitution a decade later. It lost its rights granted under the charter and was unsuccessful in suing under the Contract Clause to restore them.

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