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Pierre Lamure Numéro d’étudiant: 31001783 The written submission about The Civil Rights Cases 1) Facts In 1875, ten years after the end of the American Civil War, Congress passed a law called Civil Rights Act of 1875. This federal law forbade, in its first section, the racial discrimination practiced in places opened for the public like inns, restaurants, theaters, railway wagons… And, in its second section, it provided criminal penalties for these acts. Thus, Congress wanted to give a concrete effect to the Fourteenth Amendment adopted in 1868. The Civil Rights Cases brought together five cases. Two of these cases, United States v. Stanley and United States v. Nichols, were about two accommodations’ owners, Stanley and Nichols, who had denied to colored persons the accommodations of inn or hotel. Another, United States v. Ryan, was about Ryan, who had refused to a person of color a seat in the dress circle of Maguire’s theater in San Francisco. A fourth one, United States v. Singleton, was about Singleton, who had denied to a person, whose color was not stated, the full enjoyment of the accommodations of the theater known as the Grand Opera House in New York. The last one, Robinson v. Memphis & Charleston Railroad, was about a controller of a private railway company who had refused to a colored woman the access of the “ladies” car, in the Tennessee. 2) Procedural history The victims of these acts of racism had sued these hotels, theaters and private railway company, before different lower courts, for these acts. Then, the five cases were brought to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States consolidated these five cases into one known as The Civil Rights Cases. 3) Issue Does the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America gives to Congress the constitutional power to make a law which prohibits acts of racism committed by private citizens? 4) Rules The first section of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution gives the citizenship to every person who was born or was naturalized in the United States. Thus, it includes those who were previously slaves. And this section of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids the States to make or to apply a law which would restrict the privileges or the immunities of the citizens of the United States. It also forbids them to deprive a person of his life, his freedom or his properties without due process of law. Finally it forbids them to refuse to whoever being within their jurisdiction, the equal protection of the laws. And as for the fifth section of the Fourteenth Amendment, which is the last one, it invests Congress of the power to give effect to this Amendment by an appropriate legislation. 5) Analysis Justice Joseph P. Bradley, who wrote the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States and the arguments which led to this decision, noted the Fourteenth Amendment gave the power to Congress to pass laws which will permit to correct the effects of the action of state officers and the effects of state laws when these will carry infringement of the fundamental rights which appear in the Amendment. However, he observed that the Fourteenth Amendment did not give the power to Congress to regulate the behavior of the private persons. And he specified that no other Amendment or Article of the Constitution gave this power to Congress. This power belongs to States, according to him. But he noticed that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 did not concern State laws or state acts. The purpose of this law was to forbid certain behaviors of the private persons and to punish them. 6) Conclusion Congress exceeded its constitutional powers. It encroached on the powers of States. The Fourteenth Amendment does not give to Congress the constitutional power to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which prohibits acts of racism committed by private citizens. Thus, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the unconstitutionality of this law. The perpetrators of these racist acts could not be pursued by means of this law. 7) Dissenting opinion The Supreme Court of the United States took its decision with a majority of eight Justices. Only Justice John Marshall Harlan was against this decision. He argued that eight other Justices had a too narrow reasoning. They too much became attached to the words, to the form and not enough to the spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment. According to him, by wanting to make a strict interpretation of this Amendment, they went against the purposes of the Constitution. And he wrote that an interpretation which run counter to these purposes is not a satisfactory interpretation. He wrote that a purposive interpretation would more have been in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution. To quote the maxim: “ratio legis est anima legis”. In his view, the first sentence of the first section in the Fourteenth Amendment, which gives the citizenship to every person who was born or was naturalized in the United States, gives to Congress the power to pass laws which would apply directly to the private persons. Moreover, Justice Harlan wrote that according to this narrow interpretation, the power of Congress was reduced by this Amendment, whereas the context in which was adopted this Amendment, which follows upon the end of American Civil War, does not show that there was a will to reduce these powers. Indeed, according to Justice Harlan, previously, Congress had the power to pass laws which applied directly to the private persons to protect the slavery and the rights of the owners. Thus, John Marshall Harlan did not agree with the fact that Congress cannot pass laws which would apply directly to the private persons. Finally, he also argued that this interpretation, given by the Supreme Court of the United States, could not be the good one because everybody knew that the danger of an infringement on the equal enjoyment of the fundamental rights of the citizens did not come from States but from private persons. 8) Discussion The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States used a restricted meaning of the notion of citizenship. According to this meaning, citizenship only meant enjoying civil rights and voting right. This decision resulted from what seemed to be the vision of the majority of the Justices, as proved it a letter sent in 1876 by Justice Joseph P. Bradley to Justice William B. Woods, according to which racial segregation and citizenship could be compatible. This vision was also the one of many Americans of that time. And it only changed with the famous decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of May seventeenth, 1876, Brown v. Board of Education. This decision is often seen as the initial application of the “state action doctrine”. Pursuant to that doctrine the Constitution only applied to the government. It did not apply to private entities or actors. Congress only had the power to punish the racial discriminations committed by States but not those committed by the private persons. The Supreme Court relied on the Tenth Amendment to make this interpretation. According to the Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”. This decision also led to an outbreak of the racial discriminations. It led to the disastrous decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, Plessy v. Fergusson, in 1896, in which the Supreme Court dedicated the constitutionality of the racial segregation. However, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 brought some modifications. Indeed, it forbade any discrimination, in particular the racial discriminations, committed in the workplace and in establishments opened for the public. But it did not regulate the interpersonal relations because it would go in contradiction with “sate action doctrine”. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is based on the Interstate Commerce Clause. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 only forbade the discrimination which is practiced in private establishments which participate in the interstate commerce. The Supreme Court confirmed the Constitutionality of this federal law in the decision, Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, and in the decision, Katzenbach v. McClung, in 1964. Lastly, the Civil Rights Cases led to a ring-fencing of the private sphere.