Civil Rights Case 1883

Concerning the 1883 Civil Rights Cases, The Civil Rights Act of 1875, which forbade racial discrimination in hotels, railways, and other public places, was declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883.

 

The court decided by 8-1, that Congress did not have the authority to control the activities of private citizens and corporations under the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution. 

 

The Thirteenth Amendment and the end of the Civil War put an end to slavery in the United States, but they did not grant the former slaves legal or political equality. The "Black Codes" were a set of legislation enacted by Southern states that severely curtailed black people's freedoms and left them at the mercy of white people. Black Americans were frequently opposed to their independence in harsh and illegal ways, such as through the Ku Klux Klan's vicious attacks on former slaves.

 

Between 1865 and 1877, during the Reconstruction Era following the American Civil War, Congress took steps to safeguard Black Americans by passing a number of civil rights and enforcement statutes as well as two additional amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Civil Rights Act of 1875, the final and most forceful of these laws, levied criminal penalties against the proprietors of private companies or modes of transportation that barred access to their facilities on the basis of race.

 

Subject only to the conditions and restrictions set forth by law, and applying equally to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any prior condition of servitude, all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theatres, and other places of public amusement. 

 

The Fourteenth Amendment, now controversially referred to as "birthright citizenship," stated that a person was a citizen of the United States whether they were born there or had immigrated and naturalized. Additionally, it forbade the states from stripping any citizen of their rights to due process, equal treatment under the law, and citizenship-related privileges and immunities. The right to vote cannot be denied on the basis of race, according to the Fifteenth Amendment.

 

The Republican majority in Congress wanted to ensure by law at least an appearance of racial equality that could be protected by the government and the courts when it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, the last of the big Reconstruction acts. A key element of the Civil Rights Act, which was based on the Fourteenth Amendment's enforcement clause, outlawed racial discrimination in public settings, or what would subsequently be referred to as "public accommodations."

 

Few anticipated that such legislation would alter the prevalent racial prejudices maintained by Northern and Southern Whites, but the law sought to safeguard Black Americans from being denied even the most basic citizenship rights.

 

The U.S. Army safeguarded Black Americans and upheld these rights during the Reconstruction era when Union forces controlled the former Confederate states, but hostility among white Southerners rose. By the 1870s, the North had grown weary of its disagreements with the South about racial issues and civil rights. Additionally, racism persisted in American culture as a whole, including its legal system.

 

In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the Supreme Court took the unusual step of issuing a single, conclusive decision in five different but closely related cases. The five cases—United States v. Stanley, United States v. Ryan, United States v. Nichols, United States v. Singleton, and Robinson v. Memphis & Charleston Railroad—involved lawsuits brought by Black Americans who claimed they had been wrongfully denied equal access to restaurants, hotels, theatres, and trains as required by the Civil Rights Act of 1875. They ultimately reached the Supreme Court on appeal from lower federal courts.

 

Many companies around this time tried to circumvent the Civil Rights Act of 1875's letter by permitting Black Americans to use their facilities but requiring them to utilize separate "Colored Only" sections. 

 

The Civil Rights Act of 1875's validity was questioned by the Supreme Court in light of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The court specifically took into account:

 

•    Did the daily operations of privately owned enterprises fall under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause?

 

•    What specific safeguards did the 13th and 14th amendments offer to regular people?

 

•    Do private persons also have the right to discriminate under the 14th Amendment, which forbids state governments from doing so? 

 

•    In other words, was it OK to create "private racial segregation" like "Whites Only" and "Coloreds Only" zones? 

 

The Supreme Court heard arguments for and against allowing private racial segregation, and consequently, the legality of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, during the duration of the case.

 

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was legal because it was meant to "eliminate the remaining remnants of slavery" from America, as stated in the 13th and 14th amendments. The Supreme Court would "enable the insignia and events of slavery" to continue being a part of Americans' lives by endorsing private racial discrimination activities. The federal government has the authority under the Constitution to restrain state governments from taking measures that harm any American citizen of their civil rights. 

 

The 14th Amendment only forbade racial discrimination by state governments, not by private individuals. According to the 14th Amendment, "nor shall any State... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" are particularly prohibited. 

 

Enacted and implemented by the federal government, not the states, Private Citizens' rights to use and manage their property and businesses as they saw fit were infringed upon by the Civil Rights Act of 1875 in an unconstitutional manner. 

 

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision written by Justice Joseph P. Bradley. According to Justice Bradley, neither the 13th nor the 14th Amendments gave Congress the authority to pass legislation against racial discrimination in employment or other settings.

 

Bradley stated, "The 13th Amendment has respect, not to distinctions of race... but to slavery," in reference to the amendment. Added Bradley "The 13th Amendment relates to slavery and involuntary servitude (which it abolishes); however, such legislative power extends only to the subject of slavery and its incidents, and the denial of equal accommodations in lodging establishments, public transportation, and public places of amusement (which is prohibited by the sections in question), imposes no badge of slavery or involuntary servitude upon the party, but at most, infringes rights that are protected from State aggression by the 14th Amendment.

 

Justice Bradley continued by agreeing with the claim that the 14th Amendment only extended to the states and not to individual people or companies. He stated:

 

"The 14th Amendment is prohibitory upon the States only, and the legislation authorized to be adopted by Congress for enforcing it is not direct legislation on the matters respecting which the States are prohibited from making or enforcing certain laws, or performing certain acts, but rather it is corrective legislation, such as may be necessary or proper for counteracting and redressing the effect of such laws or acts," states the Constitution.

 

In the Civil Rights Cases, only Justice John Marshall Harlan expressed dissent. The majority's "narrow and contrived" construction of the 13th and 14th Amendments, in Harlan's opinion, prompted him to write, "I cannot escape the conclusion that a nuanced and clever word criticism has lost the substance and spirit of the recent modifications to the Constitution."

 

In addition to "prohibiting slavery as an institution," Harlan claimed that the 13th Amendment "created and decreed full civil freedom throughout the United States."

 

Harlan added that the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which extended full citizenship to all Americans born in the United States, was based on the 13th Amendment's Section II, which stated that "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by suitable legislation.

 

" The 13th and 14th amendments, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1875, according to Harlan, were constitutional measures passed by Congress with the goal of granting Black Americans the same access to and use of public spaces as white individuals assumed to be a natural right.

 

In conclusion, Harlan said that allowing private racial discrimination would "enable the badges and incidents of slavery" to persist and that the federal government has the power and duty to defend citizens from any conduct that violate their rights. 

 

Following the Supreme Court's ruling in the Civil Rights Cases, the federal government essentially lost all authority to guarantee Black Americans' equal protection under the law.

 

Liberated from the prospect of federal restraints, Southern states started passing laws that supported racial segregation, just as Justice Harlan had anticipated in his dissent.

 

With reference to the Civil Rights Cases decision, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 that segregating Blacks and Whites in different facilities was legal as long as they were "equal," and that racial segregation in and of itself did not constitute unlawful discrimination. Schools and other "separate but equal" segregated institutions would last for more than 80 years before the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s convinced people that racial discrimination was wrong.

 

Eventually, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was merged into the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, which were passed as a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society initiative.