Munn v Illinois

2. Munn v Illinois This case involved an Illinois state law limiting maximum rates for the storage of grain in privately owned grain elevators. One of the so-called Granger Laws, it grew out of the 1870 revision of the state constitution, which empowered the legislature to regulate the storage of grain. Munn and his partner were fined $100 for charging higher rates and for operating without a license. He sought relief from his conviction on the grounds that it violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and on the grounds of exclusive federal regulation of commerce. Chief Justice Waite wrote the 7-2 majority opinion asserting that the public always has a right to regulate business operations in which thepublic has an interest. “Property does become clothed with a public interest when used in a manner to make it of public consequence, and affect the community at large. When, therefore, one devotes his property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must submit to be controlled by the public for the common good, the extent of the interest he has thus created.”

3. Slaughterhouse Cases • Facts: A Louisiana law of 1869 created a state corporation for the slaughtering of livestock. The corporation was given exclusive power to slaughter livestock, and all other private slaughterhouses were required to close. Independent butchers could use the corporations facilities for a charge, but could not conduct independent operations. • Procedural Posture: The butchers not included in the monopoly claimed that the law deprived them of their right to "exercise their trade" and challenged it under the 13th and 14th amendments. The highest state court sustained the law. • Issue: Whether the 13th and 14th amendments guarantee federal protection of individual rights of all citizens of the United States against discrimination by their own state governments. • Majority Reasoning: The states have the proper police power to limit slaughter house operations for the health and safety of their residents. The meaning of the 13th and 14th amendments must be derived from the historical context of the problems they were designed to remedy, namely African slavery. The Congress, after the end of the Civil War, sought to strenghten the freedom of the former slaves by passing these amendments. • The word "servitudes" in the 13th amendment refers to "personal servitudes" not property rights, because of the qualifying word "involuntary." The purpose of the 13th amendment was thus to etch freedom for slaves into the constitution so that it later would not be questioned or avoided. The 14th amendment was a further step needed to protect former slaves from the "black codes." The 15th amendment must be grouped in with the 13th and 14th, and it was specifically for black suffrage. These three amendments were ratified to counteract the specific evils of discrimination against former slaves. They did not create any further guarantees of privileges that did not already exist. • Specifically, they only were meant to guarantee federal privileges, not state priviliges, whatever they may be. The "priviliges and immunities" clause did not create additional rights, it merely required states to apply its laws equally to non-state residents as well as state residents.

4. Plessy v Ferguson • In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a Louisiana law mandating separate but equal accommodations for blacks and whites on intrastate railroads was constitutional. This decision provided the legal foundation to justify many other actions by state and local governments to socially separate blacks and whites. • The arrest of Homer Plessy (1862-1925) on June 7, 1892, was part of a planned challenge to the 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Act by the Citizens' Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law, a small group of black professionals in New Orleans. After successfully leading a test case in which the Louisiana district court declared forced segregation in railroad cars traveling between states to be unconstitutional, the committee was anxious to test the constitutionality of segregation on railroad cars operating solely within a single state. The committees strategy was to have someone with mixed blood violate the law, which would allow Tourgée to question the law's arbitrariness. Homer Plessy, a native of south Louisiana who could "pass" as white, agreed to be the test case. The committee arranged with the railroad conductor and with a private detective to detain Plessy until he was arrested. When Plessy appeared before the Louisiana district court, the court ruled that a state had the constitutional power to regulate railroad companies operating solely within its borders and concluded that the Louisiana Separate Car Act was constitutional. The decision was appealed to the state supreme court in 1893 and was appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896. Eight of the nine justices were unconvinced by Tourgée's arguments, and ruled that neither the Thirteenth nor Fourteenth Amendment was applicable in this case. The majority opinion delivered by Henry Billings Brown, attacked the Thirteenth Amendment claims by distinguishing between political and social equality. According to this distinction, blacks and whites were politically equal (in the sense that they had the same political rights) but socially unequal (blacks were not as socially advanced as whites

5. Minor v. Happersett • Virginia Minor, a leader of the women’s suffrage movement, alleged that the refusal of Reese Happersett, a Missouri state registrar, to allow her to register to vote was an infringement of her civil rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court of Missouri upheld the Missouri voting legislation saying that the limitation of suffrage to male citizens was not an infringement of Minor's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. • The United States Supreme Court affirmed and upheld the lower court's ruling on the basis that the Fourteenth Amendment does not add to the privileges or immunities of a citizen, and that historically "citizen" and "eligible voter" have not been synonymous. Since the Constitution did not provide suffrage for women, the Fourteenth Amendment did not confer that right. The court's decision had nothing to do with whether women were considered persons under the Fourteenth Amendment; the court ruled that they were clearly persons and citizens. It rested solely on the lack of provisions within the Constitution for women's suffrage

6. Bradwell v Illinois • Myra Bradwell applied for membership in the Illinois state bar in accordance with a state statute that permitted any adult of good character and with sufficient training to be admitted. Because she was a woman, however, the Illinois State Bar denied her admission, noting that the "strife" of the bar would surely destroy femininity. Bradwell appealed the decision to the Supreme Court arguing that her right to practice law was protected by the Privileges or Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court disagreed with Bradwell. In an 8-1 ruling, it upheld the decision of the Illinois court, ruling that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not include the right to practice a profession, so it was properly regulable by the states. The majority opinion forgoes lengthy discussion of this point by referring to the discussion of privileges and immunities in the Slaughterhouse Cases. • The majority also dismissed any claim under the privileges and immunities clause of the unamended Constitution—Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1. Bradwell argued that because she had been born in Vermont but later moved to Illinois, Illinois' denial of a law license was inter-state discrimination. But the Court noted that under the recently-enacted Fourteenth Amendment. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Because Bradwell had been a resident of Illinois for several years, she was now a citizen of Illinois, and the interstate provision of Article IV did not apply.

7. United States v Wong Kim Ark • Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco, CA, sometime between 1868 and 1873.[2] His father, Wong Si Ping and his mother, Wee Lee[3] were immigrants from China and were not US citizens. • In 1890 Wong's parents returned to live in China. Later that year Wong himself traveled to China and, when he returned to the U.S., authorities granted him entry "upon the sole ground that he was a native-born citizen of the United States." Four years later, however, the circumstances had changed, as Wong, who was employed in San Francisco as a cook, sailed to China on another temporary visit in 1894. When he returned to the U.S. in August 1895, he was detained at the Port of San Francisco by the Collector of Customs, who denied him permission to enter the country — arguing that Wong, "although born in the city and county of San Francisco, state of California, United States of America, is not, under the laws of the state of California and of the United States, a citizen thereof, the mother and father of the said Wong Kim Ark being Chinese persons, and subjects of the emperor of China, and the said Wong Kim Ark being also a Chinese person and a subject of the Emperor of China.“ In 1882, Congress had enacted a law, known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting persons of the Chinese race from coming into the United States or becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. Chinese immigrants already in the U.S. were allowed to stay, but were ineligible for naturalization; and if they left the U.S., they generally could not return. In a 6-2 decision, the Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment, a child born in the United States of parents of foreign descent who, at the time of the child's birth are subjects of a foreign power but who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and are carrying on business in the United States, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under a foreign power, and are not members of foreign forces in hostile occupation of United States territory, becomes a citizen of the United States at the time of birth.

8. Wabash, St. Louis, Pacific Railroad v Illinois • In 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Company v. Illinois declared that states could not regulate commerce that went beyond their boundaries. Instead, regulation had to come from the federal government. The decision provided the basis for the formation of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887. • With rail lines crisscrossing the nation, the question of who would control rail rates and monitor the practices of the railroads had become an increasingly difficult one to answer. Many states establish their own regulatory boards, but since the rail companies operated between states, enforcing state laws on them proved cumbersome and impractical. Meanwhile the railroads, operating without the oversight of any effective regulatory body, set their own standards and practices, which resulted in many abuses. When the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Company challenged the intervention of the state of Illinois in its business, the case eventually went to the Supreme Court. • After the high court's ruling (1886), the federal government acted quickly to establish an independent U.S. government agency the following year, the Inter-state Commerce Commission (ICC). The ICC was the first regulatory commission in the country. Originally charged with supervising the country's interstate rail operations, its authority was eventually expanded to include all forms of interstate commerce, including trucking, shipping, and even oil pipelines. In addition to controlling rates, the agency also enforced laws against discrimination.