|
Slaughterhouse cases
Fact
- Slaughterhouses in New Orleans have been contaminating the Mississippi River with putrefied animal matters.
- Louisiana legislature passed the Act and prohibited slaughterhouse operations in New Orleans and created a corporation that centralized all operations. Chartered a private corporation, the Crescent City Company located at the southern part of the city, opposite the Mississippi River.
- Over 400 butchers joined to sue to stop Crescent City’s takeover of the industry.
- Lower courts ruled in favor of Crescent City. 6 cases were appealed to the Supreme Court. The butchers based their claims on the due process, privileges or immunities, and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Issue
Whether the Louisiana State legislature has the authority to grant such privilege to a company.
Whether that privilege violates the 13th and 14th Amendments.
Rule
An Act to protect the health of the city of New Orleans, to locate the stock-landings and slaughter-houses, and to incorporate the Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company
- Section 1 forbids slaughtering of animals within New Orleans. Suitable penalties are enacted for violations of this prohibition
- Section 2 designates the corporators, gives the name to the corporation, and confers on it the usual corporate powers.
- Section 3 and 4. The company shall have the sole and exclusive privilege of conducting and carrying on the live-stock landing and slaughterhouse business within the limits and privilege granted by the act, and that all such animals shall be landed at the stock landings and slaughtered at the slaughterhouses of the company, and nowhere else.
13th Amendment
- Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States
14th Amendment Section 1
- All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person with its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Application
The Court really focused on understanding the purpose of the Constitution and especially the 14th Amendment, which the plaintiff referred to when bringing suit. It even referred to the language of the Articles of Confederation regarding the “privileges and immunities.” The language constantly emphasizes the need to protect the people of different States and free citizens in several States, which can be interpreted as concerning the people of the Union rather than people of the State. While the first clause of the 14th Amendment clearly distinguishes citizens of the United States and citizens of the State, like in the Articles of Confederation, when it addresses privileges or immunities, it only stipulates citizen of the United States.
Thus the purpose of the privileges and immunities clause is to protect the citizens of the United States and not the citizens of the State. Citizens of the State, of course, should be guaranteed fundamental rights such as life, liberty, property and equal protection of the laws, but nowhere in the Amendment does it restrict States defining their own privileges and immunities for their citizens. Louisiana State decided, based on the circumstances, to define the privileges for slaughterhouses as it did in the Louisiana Act.
With this in mind, we move on to see if the Louisiana Act violates the due process and equal protection clause. The State’s Act was enacted due to concerns of the health of the general public and chartered a corporation. It had the objective to better the lives of its people and this Court rules that the Act was a necessary and proper means for this constitutional end as it was the case in McCulloch v. Maryland. The Act grants privilege to a certain company but it at the same time imposes duty to protect the rights of the butchers so they can operate freely in the restricted area that will not hurt the general public.
The provisions show no purpose or attempt to deprive the butchers of their property without due process or deny equal protection of the law. The State Act does not violate the constitution and is a result of the State practicing its constitutional and legislative police power on privileges and immunities regarding its citizens.
Dissenting
- Majority contends that the Act was adopted in the interest of the city, to promote cleanliness and health, and was the legitimate exercise of what is termed the police power of the State. All sorts of restrictions and burdens are imposed under it, and when these are not in conflict with any constitutional prohibitions, or fundamental principles, they cannot be successfully assailed in a judicial tribunal. BUT under the pretense of prescribing a police regulation the State cannot be permitted to encroach upon any of the just rights of the citizen, which the Constitution intended to secure against abridgement.
- The prohibitions imposed upon butchers and the special and exclusive privileges conferred upon the favored corporation, are similar in principle and as odious in character as the restrictions imposed upon the peasantry in France. Involuntary servitude.
- Protecting the citizens of the United States means protecting every citizen. 14th Amendment.
- Except for the two provisions that clearly promote public health and cleanliness, other provisions such as designating buildings and 17 members to enjoy the granted privileges are practically creating a monopoly. While States can have police power to regulate certain aspects in their territory, once prescribed, every citizen should be free to abide by that regulation in a free and equal way. Creating a monopoly does not guarantee this fundamental right.
Conclusion
The Louisiana Act is a practice of constitutional police power of the State and the 14th Amendment does not restrict the implementation of the Act.
Feedback
Today’s view is closer to the Dissenting Opinion.
Majority Opinion thinks the 13th Amendment was formed only to abolish slavery of blacks. Dissenting says 13th Amendment is more broadly interpreted and applies to everyone. No one should be forced into involuntary servitude.
13th Amendment. Involuntary servitude and monopoly
How are these two related?
- The butchers have been doing this business for many years without charges imposed on them by this new statute. They are being restricted from doing business they have been conducting for many years.
- Right to choose one’s occupation restricted.
- “A prohibition to him to pursue certain callings, open to others of the same age, condition, and sex, or to reside in places where others are permitted to live, would so far deprive him of the rights of a freeman, and would place him, as respects others, in a condition of servitude. A person allowed to pursue only one trade or calling, and only in one locality of the country, would be in a condition of servitude.”
14th Amendment. Privileges and Immunities Clause.
Citizens of the United States vs. Citizens of the State.
- “Not only may a man be a citizen of the United States without being a citizen of a State, but an important element is necessary to convert the former into the latter. He must reside within the State to make him a citizen of it, but it is only necessary that he should be born or naturalized in the United States to be a citizen of the Union.”
Article IV of the Constitution.
- The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
- Created before the 14th Amendment. Only addressing State citizenship. There weren’t set fundamental US citizen rights.
- US citizenship is stipulated later on in the 14th Amendment after the Civil War. Mentioned by the Majority to strengthen its argument about the purpose of 14th Amendment and differentiate between State and US citizenship.
A theme of the Majority Opinion is its effort to look into the historical purpose of the formation of the amendments. It argues that the constitutional amendments related to privilege and immunities were formed with the purpose to abolish slavery in all States by protecting the former slaves’ guaranteed fundamental rights. It refuses to expand the rights to other cases that do not involve slavery.
Butchers are a citizen of the State and thus under the influence of State police power.
Dissenting says the butchers are citizens of the Union and thus have fundamental rights of the United States citizens, which are being violated by the State statute. Fundamental rights of US citizens should be protected by State governments.
15th Amendment. Right of citizens to vote.
- Only mentioned by the Majority in order to support its assertion on the purpose of 13th and 14th Amendment. 13,14,15 are amendments that are concerning race issues.
- “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged…”
|