The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868,
sought to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves; but its
first important test did not arise until five years later. That
test centered on a vitriolic dispute among the white butchers of
mid-Reconstruction New Orleans.
The rough-and-tumble world of nineteenth-century New Orleans was
a sanitation nightmare, with the city's slaughterhouses dumping
animal remains into local backwaters. When Louisiana authorized a
monopoly slaughterhouse to bring about sanitation reform, many
independent butchers felt disenfranchised. Framing their case as an
infringement of rights protected by the new amendment, they flooded
the lower courts with nearly 300 suits. The surviving cases that
reached the U.S. Supreme Court pitted the butchers' right to labor
against the state's "police power" to regulate public health. The
result was a controversial decision that for the first time
addressed the meaning and import of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Speaking for the majority in the Court's 5-4 decision, Justice
Samuel F. Miller upheld the state's actions as a fair use of its
"police power." He also argued that the Fourteenth Amendment was
intended exclusively as a means of protecting and redressing the
suffering of former slaves. The result was a very restricted
interpretation of the amendment's "privileges and immunities," "due
process," and "equal protection" clauses. In striking contrast, the
minority, led by Justices Stephen Field and Joseph Bradley, claimed
that the Fourteenth Amendment had been intended to apply to all
Americans, not just former slaves, and therefore protected the
butchers' right to labor in their chosen profession.
Engagingly written and concisely crafted for students and
general readers, this newly abridged edition provides a very
accessible guide to one of the Supreme Court's most famous
cases.
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