Courtesy of Library of Congress, Miller, Samuel Freeman, "U.S. Reports: Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873)," 1872 In March 1869, the Louisiana state legislature enacted a
law granting a monopoly to the Crescent City Livestock Landing and Slaughterhouse Company to slaughter animals in the New Orleans area. The goal was to eliminate the waste runoff that collected in the city from slaughterhouses upstream the Mississippi River. Although all slaughterhouses were banned from operating in the area, independent butchers could still slaughter animals on the company's grounds for a fee. A group of local butchers sued, arguing that the law violated Section 1 of the
Fourteenth Amendment, most notably the amendment's Privileges and Immunities Clause. With this case, the U.S. Supreme Court was tasked with interpreting the recently ratified 14th Amendment for the first time. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled against the butchers by rejecting what would eventually become the doctrine of incorporation of the Bill of Rights. Instead, the Court argued that the 14th Amendment textually distinguished between citizens of the United States and
citizens of the several states, which mattered because the Privileges and Immunities Clause that followed protected the privileges or immunities of national citizenship from interference by state action. However, the clause did not forbid the states from withholding the privileges and immunities that belonged to state citizenship. Through this narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court essentially ruled that the federal government did not have broad power to enforce
civil rights, believing that to do so would infringe on a power that had always and needed to continue to belong to the individual states in a federal system of government. Full Transcript of U.S. Supreme Court: Slaughterhouse Cases Transcribed Excerpts from U.S. Supreme Court: Slaughterhouse Cases Miller, Samuel Freeman, "U.S. Reports: Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873)," 1872. Courtesy of Library of CongressDescription
Source-Dependent Questions
Question Relating to Excerpt, Paragraphs 1-7
Questions Relating to Excerpt, Paragraphs 8-11
Questions Relating to Excerpt, Paragraphs 12-15
Citation Information
U.S. History
1st EditionJohn Lund, Paul S. Vickery, P. Scott Corbett, Todd Pfannestiel, Volker Janssen
567 solutions
America's History for the AP Course
8th EditionEric Hinderaker, James A. Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self
470 solutions
America's History for the AP Course
9th EditionEric Hinderaker, James A. Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self
961 solutions
America's History for the AP Course
8th EditionEric Hinderaker, James A. Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self
470 solutions