The
Slaughterhouse Cases,
83 U.S. 36, 21 L.Ed. 394 (1872)
The State
of Louisiana enacted a statute that forced all butchers and slaughterers in the
City of New Orleans to conduct their business in a designated area of the city.
Three of the butchers who were thus forced to move to this area or else to
close their business challenged the statute as creating a monopoly and as a
violation of their rights and privileges protected by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Amendments. The Louisiana State courts held that the rights asserted by the
butchers were not covered by the Amendments. By a five-to-four decision, the
Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts’ position.
Mr.
Justice MILLER, now, April 14th, 1873, delivered the opinion of the court.
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The
records show that the plaintiffs in error relied upon, and asserted throughout
the entire course of the litigation in the State courts, that the grant of
privileges in the charter of defendant, which they were contesting, was a
violation of the most important provisions of the thirteenth and fourteenth
articles of amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The
jurisdiction and the duty of this court [83 U.S. 36,
59] to review the judgment of the State court on those
questions is clear and is imperative.
* * *
[83 U.S. 36, 74] Of the privileges and immunities of the
citizen of the United States, and of the privileges and immunities of the
citizen of the State, and what they respectively are, we will presently
consider; but we wish to state here that it is only
the former which are placed by this clause under the protection of the Federal
Constitution, and that the latter, whatever they may be, are not intended to
have any additional protection by this paragraph of the amendment. [83 U.S. 36, 75] If, then, there is a
difference between the privileges and immunities belonging to a citizen of the
United States as such, and those belonging to the citizen of the State as such
the latter must rest for their security and protection where they have heretofore
rested; for they are not embraced by this paragraph of the amendment.
* * *
[83 U.S. 36, 80] The argument has not been much pressed
in these cases that the defendant's charter deprives the plaintiffs of their
property without due process of law, or that it denies to them the equal
protection of the law. The first of these paragraphs has been in the
Constitution since the adoption of the fifth amendment, as a restraint upon the
Federal power. It is also to be found in some form of expression in the
constitutions of nearly all the States, as a restraint upon the power of the
States. This law then, has practically been the same as it now is during the
existence of the government, except so far as the present amendment may place
the restraining power over the States in this matter in the hands of the
Federal government.
We are not
without judicial interpretation, therefore, both State and National, of the
meaning of this clause. And it [83 U.S. 36, 81] is
sufficient to say that under no construction of that provision that we have
ever seen, or any that we deem admissible, can the restraint imposed by the
State of Louisiana upon the exercise of their trade by the butchers of New
Orleans be held to be a deprivation of property within the meaning of that
provision.
'Nor shall
any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
the laws.'
In the
light of the history of these amendments, and the pervading purpose of them,
which we have already discussed, it is not difficult to give a meaning to this
clause. The existence of laws in the States where the newly emancipated negroes
resided, which discriminated with gross injustice and hardship against them as
a class, was the evil to be remedied by this clause, and by it such laws are
forbidden.
If,
however, the States did not conform their laws to its requirements, then by the
fifth section of the article of amendment Congress was authorized to enforce it
by suitable legislation. We doubt very much whether any action of a State not
directed by way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account
of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision.
It is so clearly a provision for that race and that emergency, that a strong
case would be necessary for its application to any other. But as it is a State
that is to be dealt with, and not alone the validity of its laws, we may safely
leave that matter until Congress shall have exercised its power, or some case
of State oppression, by denial of equal justice in its courts, shall have
claimed a decision at our hands. We find no such case in the one before us, and
do not deem it necessary to go over the argument again, as it may have relation
to this particular clause of the amendment.