The Cruikshank case dealt with the Colfax Massacre, an incident in which an armed mob of whites attacked and killed over one hundred blacks in Colfax, Louisiana. The ringleaders were put on trial and convicted under the Enforcement Act of 1870, legislation similar to modern legislation making it a crime to interfere with constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court ruled on a range of issues and found the indictment faulty. The Court found (contrary to modern Supreme Court rulings) that the 1st Amendment right to assembly "was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens" and (neither directly supported nor directly contradicted by modern Supreme Court rulings) that the 2nd Amendment "has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government".
Although the Enforcement Act had been designed primarily to halt the violence of the Ku Klux Klan in preventing blacks from voting, the Cruikshank court held that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses apply only to state action, and not to actions of individuals.
Although significant portions of Presser have been overturned by later decisions, it is still relied upon with some authority in other portions.
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Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/92/542.html)
Cruikshank, 92 U.S. (1875), was an important UnitedStates Supreme Court decision in UnitedStates constitutional law, one of the earliest to deal with the application of the Bill of Rights to state governments following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Cruikshank case dealt with the Colfax Massacre, an incident in which an armed mob of whites attacked and killed over one hundred fls in Colfax, Louisiana.
Although the Enforcement Act had been designed primarily to halt the violence of the Ku Klux Klan in preventing fls from voting, the Cruikshank court held that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses apply only to state action, and not to actions of individuals.
In answer to the argument that the parties assaulted were not officers of the UnitedStates, and that their protection by Congress in exercising the right to vote did not stand on the same ground with the protection of election officers of the UnitedStates, the court, speaking by Mr.
UnitedStates; and the private right of a citizen, having made a homestead entry, to be protected from interference while remaining in the possession of the land for the time of occupancy which Congress has enacted shall entitle him to a patent.
UnitedStates, 142 U.S. As the defendants were indicted and to be tried for a crime punishable with death, those jurors who stated on voir dire that they had "conscientious scruples in regard to the infliction of the death penalty for crime" were rightly permitted to be challenged by the government for cause.
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