Civil Rights Cases
Supreme Court of the United States
Full case name: Civil Rights Cases
Holding
The Equal Protection clause applies only to state action, not segregation by privately owned businesses.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Morrison Waite Associate Justices: Samuel Freeman Miller, Stephen Johnson Field, Joseph Philo Bradley, John Marshall Harlan, William Burnham Woods, Thomas Stanley Matthews, Horace Gray, Samuel Blatchford
Case opinions
Majority by: Bradley Joined by: Waite, Miller, Field, Woods, Matthews, Gray, Blatchford Dissent by: Harlan
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. XIII, XIV; Civil Rights Act of 1875

The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883)^[1], were a group of five similar cases consolidated into one issue for the United States Supreme Court to review. The decision held that Congress lacked the constitutional authority under the enforcement provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals and organizations, rather than state and local governments. Image File history File links Seal_of_the_United_States_Supreme_Court. ... The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the judicial branch of the United States federal government. ... Morrison Remick Waite served as the Chief Justice of the United States. ... Samuel Freeman Miller (April 5, 1816 - October 13, 1890), was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1862-1890. ... Stephen Johnson Field (November 4, 1816 – April 9, 1899) was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from May 20, 1863, to December 1, 1897. ... Joseph Philo Bradley (March 14, 1813 – January 22, 1892), was an American jurist, best known for his service on the United States Supreme Court, and on the Electoral Commission that decided the disputed 1876 presidential election. ... John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911) John Marshall Harlan (June 1, 1833 – October 14, 1911) was an American Supreme Court associate justice. ... 1888 engraving of Justice Woods William Burnham Woods (1824–1887) was an American jurist, politician, and soldier. ... Categories: People stubs | U.S. Supreme Court justices | United States Senators | Ohio State Senators | American lawyers | U.S. Army officers | 1824 births | 1889 deaths ... Horace Gray (March 24, 1828-September 15, 1902) was an American jurist. ... Samuel Blatchford (March 9, 1820–July 7, 1893) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from April 3, 1882 until his death. ... Amendment XIII (the Thirteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution abolished slavery and, with the exception of allowing punishments for crimes, prohibits involuntary servitude. ... The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War amendments and includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. ... The Civil Rights Act of 1875 (18 Stat. ... // Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters or law reports. ... 1883 (MDCCCLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the judicial branch of the United States federal government. ... Congress in Joint Session. ... A number of amendments to the United States Constitution include a Congressional power of enforcement. ... The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War amendments and includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. ...

More particularly, the Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which provided that "all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude" was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 (18 Stat. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into constitutionality. ...

Facts

The decision itself involved five consolidated cases coming from different lower courts in which African-Americans had sued theaters, hotels and transit companies that had refused them admittance or excluded them from "white only" facilities.

Decision of the Court

The Court, in a decision by Justice Joseph P. Bradley, held that the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibited denial of equal protection by a state, did not give Congress power to regulate these private acts. Joseph Philo Bradley (March 14, 1813-January 22, 1892), was an American jurist. ... The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the post-Civil War amendments and includes the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. ...

The Court also acknowledged that the Thirteenth Amendment does apply to private actors, but only to the extent that it prohibits people from owning slaves, not exhibiting discriminatory behavior. The Court says that "it would be running the slavery argument into the ground to make it apply to every act of discrimination which a person may see fit to make as to guests he will entertain, or as to the people he will take into his coach or cab or car; or admit to his concert or theatre, or deal with in other matters of intercourse or business." Amendment XIII (the Thirteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution abolished slavery and, with the exception of allowing punishments for crimes, prohibits involuntary servitude. ...

Dissent

Justice Harlan challenged the Court's narrow interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in his dissent. As he noted, Congress was attempting to overcome the refusal of the states to protect the rights denied to African-Americans that white citizens took as their birthright: John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911) John Marshall Harlan (June 1, 1833 – October 14, 1911) was an American Supreme Court associate justice. ...

"My brethren say that when a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficient legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected. It is, I submit, scarcely just to say that the colored race has been the special favorite of the laws. What the nation, through congress, has sought to accomplish in reference to that race is, what had already been done in every state in the Union for the white race, to secure and protect rights belonging to them as freemen and citizens; nothing more. The one underlying purpose of congressional legislation has been to enable the black race to take the rank of mere citizens. The difficulty has been to compel a recognition of their legal right to take that rank, and to secure the enjoyment of privileges belonging, under the law, to them as a component part of the people for whose welfare and happiness government is ordained."

Consequences of the decision

Harlan correctly predicted the consequences of this decision: it put an end to the attempts by Radical Republicans to ensure the civil rights of blacks and ushered in the widespread segregation of blacks in housing, employment and public life that confined them to second-class citizenship throughout much of the United States until the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. Radical Republicans were certain Republicans in Congress and other federal and state leaders during the American Civil War and Reconstruction eras in U.S. history. ... Historically, the Civil Rights Movement was a concentrated period of time around the world of approximately one generation (1960-1980) wherein there was much worldwide civil unrest and popular rebellion. ...

The decision that the Reconstruction-era Civil Rights Acts were unconstitutional has not been overturned; on the contrary, the Supreme Court reaffirmed this limited reading of the Fourteenth Amendment in United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), in which it held that Congress did not have the authority to enact the Violence Against Women Act. The Court has, however, upheld more recent civil rights laws based on Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause in Article I. Holding The Violence Against Women Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 13981, is unconstitutional as exceeding congressional power under the Commerce Clause and under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. ... The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) was passed as Title IV, sec. ... Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, known as the Commerce Clause, empowers the United States Congress To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes. ...

External links

1. ^ 109 U.S. 3 (Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com)

• Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883) (full text with links to cited Supreme Court opinions, U.S. Code, C.F.R., and U.S. Constitution sections)