Slaughterhouse Cases

After discussing the history of servitude and slavery, the attorneys for the appellants pointed out that slavery had taken many forms in the past, one of which was to subject individuals in specific areas to special restrictions on their rights, by "enthralling" the land. The attorneys claimed that the act of establishing the state monopoly in slaughtering made three parishes of the state "enthralled ground," by eliminating a specific right to conduct business in those three parishes. They further pointed out that the Fourteenth Amendment, for the first time, established citizenship in the United States and made it unconstitutional for any state to deny the rights of citizens to anyone within their state. One right of citizenship was the right to conduct business, and the state had taken that right away, thus violating the Fourteenth Amendment.

Justice Miller, writing the opinion of the Court, argued that butchers could still exercise their right to conduct their business, it just had to be done in the state-established slaughterhouse. As long as the rate charged by the monopoly was fair and did not discriminate, the butchers could not claim that their rights had been invaded. He further pointed out that the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment had been to specifically overturn the Dred Scott decision of 1857. That decision had ruled that slaves and former slaves were not citizens and that they could not bring suit in federal court. Without the Fourteenth Amendment, former slaves would have been governed in court proceedings by the pre-Civil War Dred Scott ruling. However, by defining citizenship in the United States, and by stating that the previous condition of servitude did not diminish citizenship, the amendment made it possible for former slaves to exercise all of their rights as citizens, including court actions. Hence, Miller generally limited the effect of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment to former slaves.

In their dissents, Justices Field, Bradley, and Swayne showed that the logic of applying the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to all citizens and the rights to conduct business was a telling argument. Bradley argued that a citizen was not a free man unless he could follow his own trade. However, Bradley believed the state could force butchers, under police power, to slaughter in certain districts, but could not force them to do so in a state-established monopoly slaughterhouse. Field and Swayne believed that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments should apply very broadly, beyond former slaves.

The decision showed that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, although originally intended to deal with the civil rights of former slaves, could be much more broadly applied. The amendments would later prove very useful in preventing states from interfering in business expansion, and would become essential legal tools in the growth of American business in the last decades of the nineteenth century. However, the ruling favored the state of Louisiana, and showed that the Court would not interpret the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting any rights of citizens against action by states unless the rights were specifically Federal rights guaranteed by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or by existing federal statute.

In 1884, the issue once again came before the Supreme Court. Surprisingly, in Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., the state of Louisiana had decided to break the monopoly and to allow butchers to operate their own slaughterhouses. The monopoly company, Crescent City, sued to regain sole rights to the business, arguing that the state had issued a binding monopoly contract to the company. The legislature and the constitution of Louisiana permitted the state to break the monopoly, but a circuit court ruled in favor of the monopoly. The Supreme Court overturned the circuit court, and affirmed the right of the state to break its own contract in this case. While appearing to side in 1873 with Crescent City Live Stock Company, and then appearing in 1884 to side against it, the Court's actions seem to be inconsistent. In fact, the Court in both cases decided in favor of the state's ability to control its own behavior in this area of rights.