United States v. Harris

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the provision punishing private conspiracies was unconstitutional. The Court began by stating the rules applicable to its analysis. First, the Court had to presume that Congress had constitutional power to pass the statute unless the lack of constitutional authority was clearly demonstrated. Next, the Court stated, "every valid act of Congress must find in the Constitution some warrant for its passage." To summarize the analytical process, the Court quoted Justice Joseph Story's Commentaries on the Constitution saying, "Whenever, therefore, a question arises concerning the constitutionality of a particular power, the first question is whether the power be expressed in the Constitution. If it be, the question is decided. If it be not expressed, the next inquiry must be whether it is properly an incident to an express power and necessary to its execution. If it be, then it may be exercised by Congress. If not, Congress cannot exercise it."

Searching the Constitution, the Court found only four paragraphs that could have any reference to the question at hand. Those paragraphs were Section 2 of Article 4 of the original Constitution and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments. The Court considered each of these constitutional provisions, in turn, to determine if any of them gave Congress the power to enact the Civil Rights Act provisions criminalizing private conspiracies.

The Court first concluded that the Fifteenth Amendment, guaranteeing the right to vote, did not give Congress that power. The Civil Rights Act criminalized the conduct of private persons who invaded the equal privileges or immunities of others or deprived others of equal protection of the law. It made no reference to conduct of the state or the United States or to voting rights. According to the Court, such a law could not be founded on the Fifteenth Amendment, the sole object of which was to prevent the United States or the states from denying or abridging voting rights based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The Court also found no support for the act's criminal provisions in the Fourteenth Amendment, again because the provisions were directed at the actions of private persons, without reference to the laws of the states, or the administration of those laws by state officials. The Fourteenth Amendment, in the Court's opinion, prohibited states, not private persons, from making or enforcing any law abridging the privileges or immunities of U.S. citizens, depriving any person of life, liberty or property without due process, or denying any person equal protection of the laws. The Court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment, like the Fifteenth, could not be read to authorize the federal government to regulate private conduct.

Elaborating on its position, the Supreme Court quoted Justice Bradley in United States v. Cruikshank, stating that the Fourteenth Amendment "is a guaranty against the exertion of arbitrary and tyrannical power on the part of the government and legislature of the state, not a guaranty against the commission of individual offenses; and the power of congress, whether express or implied, to legislate for the enforcement of such a guaranty, does not extend to the passage of laws for the suppression of crime within the states." To emphasize its point, the Court said, "When the state has been guilty of no violation of [the amendment's] provisions, . . . when, on the contrary, the laws of the state, as enacted by its legislative, and construed by its judicial, and administered by its executive departments, recognize and protect the rights of all persons, (then) the amendment imposes no duty and confers no power upon Congress." The Court held that because the Civil Rights Act applied no matter how well the state may have performed its duty, the act could find no warrant in the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude, also did not warrant the enactment of the criminal provisions of the act. Although the amendment gave Congress the power to enact enforcing legislation, the Court determined that the civil rights provisions under review were broader than what the Thirteenth Amendment would justify. According to the Court, the provisions could apply even to a conspiracy between two free white men against another free white man to deprive the latter of a right accorded him by the laws of the state or of the United States. The Court concluded by saying, such a law "clearly cannot be authorized by the amendment which simply prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude."

The final constitutional provision considered by the Court was Article 4, Section 2, declaring that the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several states. The object of this provision is to inhibit a state from passing legislation discriminating against citizens of other states. The Court concluded that the criminal provisions of the Civil Rights Act could not find support in this article, again because the article was directed against state action, rather than the actions of private citizens who invade the rights of fellow citizens.