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Three cases regarding state-created monopolies. Several parishes (counties) in eastern Louisiana desired to move all meat and butchering slaughter house activities to a location outside the city limits. In so doing, the local government provided the Crescent City Live-stock Landing and Slaughter-house Company a 25 year monopoly to monitor and oversee all slaughter house operations. This monopoly effectively placed all butchers in the area out of work, thus depriving these people of the right to work. These
combined cases were the first to provide the Supreme Court an opportunity to investigate the meaning of
the new Fourteenth
Amendment. In the ensuing decision, the Court greatly limited the meaning of the Privileges or
Immunities Clause. With respect to the very fresh memories of the War Among the States, the Court ruled
that the amendment was ratified to protect black people who recently became citizens through the
Thirteenth,
Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments, not existing citizens. A 5 to 4 majority found that the
Fourteenth Amendment did not protect fundamental rights such as the right to labor. In other words, the War
amendments were designed to secure freedoms of blacks, not to expand protections for whites. Subsequent
rulings eventually would nullify this belief. Full Text: Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (Wall.) 36
(1872) |