Background:
landmarkcases.c-span.org
supreme.justia.com
The ruling in Slaughterhouse did two things: gut the Privileges or Immunities clause out of the 14th Amendment and postponed - but not prevented - the possibility of incorporating the Bill of Rights against the individual states.
What is particularly striking about this case is that the that plaintiffs were trying to use the 14th Amendment to undermine Reconstruction, and were represented by John Campbell, a former Justice who resigned to fight for the Confederacy and spent every waking moment after getting out of prison after the fall of Richmond to try to stop Reconstruction. However, it was in losing this case before the Supreme Court that Campbell actually delivered Reconstruction one of its greatest blows. Campbell was arguing against the Louisiana law in question because it was passed by a biracial Reconstruction legislature, and he wanted to discredit it. But, once the Privileges or Immunities clause was gutted, there was little to stop southern states from imposing what would become the Jim Crow laws, until decades of gradual clawing back these rights took place.
We'll set aside whether this was all some complex gambit on Campbell's part to lose on purpose - I don't think anyone whose grasp of logic is weak enough to think the Confederacy's cause made any sense is clever enough for that.
So, let us say the ruling goes the other way. It was a 5-4 decision, and the dissent was pretty vehement in pointing out that that the majority ruling was gutting a key part of the 14th Amendment. If we want to drill down to a personal scale, apparently, Miller, writing for the majority, absolutely loathed Campbell for resigning from the Court to fight for the Confederacy. So, perhaps just having Campbell come down with a bout of cholera is enough to get Miller on the other side. Or perhaps any Justice from the majority realizes that, despite the specifics surrounding this case, gutting P&I dooms Reconstruction, and rules differently.
I'll leave the exact nature of this ruling up for discussion, but lets say the maximum scope of the majority's ruling being that the P&I clause of the 14th Amendment incorporate all 8 applicable Amendments from the Bill of Rights. The ex-Confederates might cheer this on in the short term, since they've just won a landmark case in the Supreme Court (it was recognized to be a big deal back then) and given a Reconstruction state government a huge black eye. In the medium-long term, however, they've just undermined their ability to impose any legislative restrictions on blacks.
Unless a later Court reverses this ruling (which would be damn hard to justify, due to the nature of it and its proximity to the ratification of the 14th Amendment), the Court is going to get swamped with 14th Amendment cases, and they've just bound their hands on how they can rule on them. What does that do to Reconstruction, when the Court is constantly striking down the various restrictions the ex-Confederate states are attempting to impose?
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Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1872)
Slaughterhouse Cases: The Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is limited to federal citizenship rather than extending to state citizenship.
supreme.justia.com
The ruling in Slaughterhouse did two things: gut the Privileges or Immunities clause out of the 14th Amendment and postponed - but not prevented - the possibility of incorporating the Bill of Rights against the individual states.
What is particularly striking about this case is that the that plaintiffs were trying to use the 14th Amendment to undermine Reconstruction, and were represented by John Campbell, a former Justice who resigned to fight for the Confederacy and spent every waking moment after getting out of prison after the fall of Richmond to try to stop Reconstruction. However, it was in losing this case before the Supreme Court that Campbell actually delivered Reconstruction one of its greatest blows. Campbell was arguing against the Louisiana law in question because it was passed by a biracial Reconstruction legislature, and he wanted to discredit it. But, once the Privileges or Immunities clause was gutted, there was little to stop southern states from imposing what would become the Jim Crow laws, until decades of gradual clawing back these rights took place.
We'll set aside whether this was all some complex gambit on Campbell's part to lose on purpose - I don't think anyone whose grasp of logic is weak enough to think the Confederacy's cause made any sense is clever enough for that.
So, let us say the ruling goes the other way. It was a 5-4 decision, and the dissent was pretty vehement in pointing out that that the majority ruling was gutting a key part of the 14th Amendment. If we want to drill down to a personal scale, apparently, Miller, writing for the majority, absolutely loathed Campbell for resigning from the Court to fight for the Confederacy. So, perhaps just having Campbell come down with a bout of cholera is enough to get Miller on the other side. Or perhaps any Justice from the majority realizes that, despite the specifics surrounding this case, gutting P&I dooms Reconstruction, and rules differently.
I'll leave the exact nature of this ruling up for discussion, but lets say the maximum scope of the majority's ruling being that the P&I clause of the 14th Amendment incorporate all 8 applicable Amendments from the Bill of Rights. The ex-Confederates might cheer this on in the short term, since they've just won a landmark case in the Supreme Court (it was recognized to be a big deal back then) and given a Reconstruction state government a huge black eye. In the medium-long term, however, they've just undermined their ability to impose any legislative restrictions on blacks.
Unless a later Court reverses this ruling (which would be damn hard to justify, due to the nature of it and its proximity to the ratification of the 14th Amendment), the Court is going to get swamped with 14th Amendment cases, and they've just bound their hands on how they can rule on them. What does that do to Reconstruction, when the Court is constantly striking down the various restrictions the ex-Confederate states are attempting to impose?
