5. JUDICIAL INTERPRETATION OF THE RECONSTRUCTION LAWS The Purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment 16 Wallace, p. 36. Opinion of Justice Miller. In effect decides that the Fourteenth Amendment does not limit the "police" powers of the states. [1872] [BEFORE the adoption of the recent amendments] almost the entire domain of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the States.. lay within the constitutional and legislative power of the States, and without that of the Federal government. Was it the purpose of the fourteenth amendment, by the simple. declaration that no State should make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, to transfer the security and protection of all the civil rights which we have mentioned, from the States to the federal government? And where it is declared that Congress shall have the power to enforce that article, was it intended to bring within the power of Congress the entire domain of civil rights heretofore belonging exclusively to the States? . . Such a construction . . would constitute this court a perpetual censor upon all legislation of the States, on the civil rights of their own citizens, with authority to nullify such as it did not approve as consistent with those rights, as they existed at the time of the adoption of this amendment. The argument we admit is not always the most conclusive which is drawn from the consequences urged against the adoption of a particular construction of an instrument. But when, as in the case before us, these consequences are so serious, so farreaching and pervading, so great a departure from the structure and spirit of our institutions; when the effect is to fetter and degrade the State governments by subjecting them to the control of Congress, in the exercise of powers heretofore universally conceded to them of the most ordinary and fundamental character; when in fact it radically changes the whole theory of the relations of the State and federal governments to each other, and of both these governments to the people; the argument has a force that is irresistible. We are convinced that no such results were intended by the Congress which proposed these amendments, nor by the leg islatures of the States which ratified them. . . If, however, the States did not conform their laws to its requirements, then by the fifth section of the article of amendment Congress was authorized to enforce it by suitable legisla tion. We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed, by way of discrimination, against the negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision. It is so clearly a provision for that race and that emergency, that a strong case would be necessary for its application to any other. The Scope of the Fourteenth Amendment 92 U. S. Reports, p. 542. Case of U. S. vs. Cruikshanks. Opinion by Chief Justice Waite. Follows the Slaughter House cases in declaring that national legislation enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment must be directed against violations by states, not by individuals. [October, 1875] THE fourteenth amendment prohibits a State from denying to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws; but this provision does not, any more than the one which preceded it, and which we have just considered, add anything to the rights which one citizen has under the Constitution against another. The equality of the rights of citizens is a principle of republicanism. Every republican government is in duty bound to protect all its citizens in the enjoyment of this principle, if within its power. That duty was originally assumed by the States; and it still remains there. The only obligation resting upon the United States is to see that the States do not deny the right. This the amendment guarantees, but no more. The power of the national government is limited to the enforcement of this guaranty. First Enforcement Act Unconstitutional 92 U. S. Reports, p. 214. Case of U. S. vs. Reese. Opinion by RIGHTS and immunities created by or dependent upon the right of suffrage upon any one. It prevents the States, or the United States, however, from giving preference, in this particular, to one citizen of the United States over another on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The power of Congress to legislate at all upon the subject of voting at State elections rests upon this amendment. . . It has not been contended, nor can it be, that the amendment confers authority to impose penalties for every wrongful refusal to receive the vote of a qualified elector at State elections. It is only when the wrongful refusal at such an election is because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, that Congress can interfere, and provide for its punishment. If, therefore, the third and fourth sections of the act [May 31, 1870] are beyond that limit, they are unauthorized. . . This act prescribes rules not provided by the laws of the States. It substitutes, under certain circumstances, performance wrongfully prevented for performance itself. If the elector makes and presents his affidavits in the form and to the effect prescribed, the inspectors are to treat this as the equivalent of the specified requirement of the State law. This is a radical change in practice, and the statute which creates it should be explicit in its terms. Nothing should be left to construction, if it can be avoided. The elector, under the provisions of the statute, is only required to state in his affidavit that he has been wrongfully prevented by the officer from qualifying. There are no words of limitation in this part of the section. If this statute limits the wrongful act which will justify the affidavit to discriminate on account of race, etc., then a citizen who makes an affidavit that he has been wrongfully prevented by the officer, which is true in the ordinary sense of the term, subjects himself to indictment and trial, if not conviction, because it is not true that he has been prevented by such a wrongful act as the statute contemplated; and if there is no such limi tation, but any wrongful act of exclusion will justify the affidavit, and give the right to vote without the actual performance of the prerequisite, then the inspector who rejects the vote because he reads the law in its limited sense, and thinks it is confined to a wrongful discrimination on account of race, etc., subjects himself to prosecution, if not to punishment, because he has misconstrued the law. But when we go beyond the third section, and read the fourth, we find there no words of limitation, or reference even, that can be construed as manifesting any intention to confine its provisions to the terms of the Fifteenth Amendment. That section has for its object the punishment of all persons, who, by force, bribery, etc., hinder, delay, etc., any person from qualifying or voting. In view of these facts, we feel compelled to say, that, in our opinion, the language of the third and fourth sections does not confine their operation to unlaw ful discrimination on account of race, etc. If Congress had the power to provide generally for the punishment of those who unlawfully interfere to prevent the exercise of the elec tive franchise without regard to such discrimination, the language of these sections would be broad enough for that purpose. Ku Klux Act Unconstitutional 106 U. 8. Reports, p. 629. Case of U. S. vs. Harris. Opinion by Justice Woods. [October, 1882] EVERY valid act of Congress must find in the Constitution some warrant for its passage. . . It is clear that the Fif teenth Amendment can have no application. Section 5519, [a part of Section 2, of the Act of April 20, 1871], according to the theory of the prosecution, and as appears by its terms, was framed to protect from invasion by private persons, the equal privileges and immunities under the laws, of all persons and classes of persons. It requires no argument to show that such a law cannot be founded on a clause of the Constitution whose sole object is to protect from denial or abridgment, by the United States or States, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, the right of citizens of the United States to vote. It is, however, strenuously insisted that the legislation under consideration finds its warrant in the first and fifth sections of the Fourteenth Amendment. . . It is perfectly clear from the language of the first section that its purpose also was to place a restraint upon the action of the States. . . The legislation under consideration finds no warrant for its enactment in the Fourteenth Amendment. The language of the amendment does not leave this subject in doubt. When the State has been guilty of no violation of its provisions; when it has not made or enforced any law abridging the privileges. or immunities of citizens of the United States; when no one of its departments has deprived any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denied to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws; when, on the contrary, the laws of the State, as enacted by its legislative, and construed by its judicial, and administered by its executive departments, recognize and protect the rights of all persons, the amendment imposes no duty and confers no power upon Congress. . . As, therefore, the section of the law under consideration is directed exclusively against the action of private persons, without reference to the laws of the State or their administration by her officers, we are clear in the opinion that it is not warranted by any clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. . . Does the Thirteenth Amendment warrant the enactment of sect. 5519 of the Revised Statutes? We are of the opinion that it does not. Our conclusion is based on the fact that the provisions of that section are broader than the Thirteenth Amendment would justify. . . If, therefore, we hold that sect. 5519 is warranted by the Thirteenth Amendment, we should, by virtue of that amendment, accord to Congress the power to punish every crime by which the right of any person to life, property, or reputation is invaded. Thus, under a |