Download Civil Rights Cases

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.