The Slaughter-House Cases and a Narrowed Promise

The first major test of the Fourteenth Amendment came not from freed people but from New Orleans butchers. In 1869 Louisiana's legislature, citing public health, required all slaughtering in the New Orleans area to take place at one company's facility. Independent butchers argued that this monopoly violated their privileges or immunities as citizens, including the right to pursue a lawful trade. In the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873, a 5-4 majority led by Justice Samuel Miller rejected their claim.

It ruled that the privileges or immunities clause protected only a narrow set of rights of national citizenship, such as travelling to the seat of government or using navigable waters, leaving most rights under state control. Justice Stephen Field's dissent warned that this made the clause a vain and idle enactment. Many scholars across the political spectrum now criticize the decision, which effectively removed the clause the framers may have intended to protect the Bill of Rights against the states.