SLAUGHTERHOUSE CASES

SLAUGHTERHOUSE CASES, 16 WALL. (83 U.S.) 36 (1873). The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) provided the U.S. Supreme Court its first opportunity to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been adopted in 1868. The 5 to 4 majority held that New Orleans butchers did not have the right to pursue their occupation without utilizing a state-licensed central slaughterhouse, rejecting arguments based upon the common law of monopolies, the Thirteenth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Samuel F. Miller, writing for the majority, stated that the "one pervading purpose" of the Reconstruction amendments was to protect "the slave race" and expressed doubts that any circumstances could arise in which the amendments applied to any other race. In three separate opinions, four dissenters supported butchers' claims and three of the dissenters suggested that the Fourteenth Amendment enforced the Bill of Rights against the states.

The split among the justices was over the extent to which the Fourteenth Amendment changed state-federal relations. Previously, Justice Miller had supported a conservative alternative version of the Fourteenth Amendment, implying opposition to the amendment actually adopted, while dissenters Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase and Justice Stephen J. Field had favored the amendment's adoption. Because this case attempted to define the boundary between state and federal power, its meaning and the motivation of the justices is the subject of continuing scholarly debate.

Although largely discredited, the case has never been overruled. In Saenz v. Roe (1999), the Supreme Court used the amendment's "privileges or immunities" clause to uphold a right to travel claim, opening the possibility of future reconsideration of the Slaughterhouse Cases.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aynes, Richard L. "Constricting the Law of Freedom: Justice Miller, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Slaughter-House Cases." Chicago-Kent Law Review 70 (1994): 627– 688.

Brandwein, Pamela. Reconstructing Reconstruction: The Supreme Court and the Production of Historical Truth. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999. See especially pp. 61–95.

Fairman, Charles. Reconstruction and Reunion, 1864–88. Part I. New York: Macmillan Company, 1971. See especially pp. 1324–1363.

Richard L.Aynes

See alsoReconstruction ; Saenz v. Roe .