Questions to Answer in Reading the Slaughter-House Cases

In the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873), the challengers relied on the newly adopted 13th and 14th Amendments to assert their claim that the Louisiana law creating the Crescent City Livestock Landing and Slaughter-House Company was unconstitutional. The challengers made 4 separate arguments:

1. The law violated the 13th Amendment prohibition against involuntary servitude
2. The law violated the 14th Amendment Due Process Clause
3. The law violated the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause
4. The law violated the 14th Amendment Privileges and Immunities Clause.

The Supreme Court rejected all 4 arguments.  We will discuss in class why the Court rejected each of the 4 arguments.  However, the edited version of the Slaughter-House Cases in the casebook focuses on the Court’s rejection of the 14th Amendment Privileges and Immunities Clause argument. To understand why the Court rejects that argument, you should attempt to answer the following questions:

1. There are two Privileges and Immunities Clauses in the Constitution, one in Article IV that prohibits states from discriminating against nonresidents of the state in relation to privileges and immunities of state citizenship and one in the 14th Amendment that protects the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. We already know from United Building & Construction Trades Council v. Mayor & Council of Camden and Supreme Court of New Hampshire v. Piper, that the privileges and immunities of citizens of state citizenship protected by Article IV include those rights that are fundamental to interstate harmony such as the right to practice a profession. Those rights, as described in Ward v. Maryland, 79 U.S. 418 (1870), also include “the right of a citizen of one State to pass into any other State of the Union for the purpose of engaging in lawful commerce, trade, or business without molestation; to acquire personal property; to take and hold real estate; to maintain actions in the courts of the State; and to be exempt from any higher taxes or excises than are imposed by the State upon its own citizens.”  Those rights are also described in Corfield v. Coryell (quoted on page 343 in the Slaughterhouse Cases).

According to the Court, does the 14th Amendment Privileges and Immunities Clause, which protects the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, protect those same rights or a different group of rights?

2. If the 14th Amendment Privileges and Immunities Clause protected the right to practice a profession, would you expect the challengers to win or lose in the Slaughterhouse Cases?

3. The Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV protects against discrimination by a state against non-citizens of the state. This provision guarantees equal treatment of citizens of a state and non-citizens of a state in the grant of certain rights. However, if a state refuses to grant its own citizens a particular right they have no claim under the clause. Moreover, if a state refuses to grant its own citizens a particular right then non-citizens have no claim to the protection of that right since all that is guaranteed is equality of treatment.

Does the 14th Amendment Privileges and Immunities Clause also guarantee some form of equality of treatment or does it constitutionally guarantee certain rights to U.S. citizens which states can’t take away either from their own citizens or from non-citizens?

4. The list of privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States was described in the case of Crandall v. Nevada,73 U.S. 35 (1867), as quoted in the Slaughterhouse Cases (page 344). What do those rights include? Why do the protections of these rights seem particularly suited to the role of the federal government?

5. Why did the Court conclude that the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment did not expand the privileges and immunities of U.S. citizens to include rights previously guaranteed only by the states and not by the federal government?