An introduction to Constitutional Law 100 Supreme Court cases everyone should know

The Grand Opera House in New York denied “another person, whose color is not stated, the full enjoyment of the accommodations.”

Maguire’s theater in San Francisco “refus[ed] a colored person a seat in the dress circle.”

The Waite Court (1882-1887). Seated, from left to right: Justices Joseph P. Bradley, Samuel F. Miller, and Chief Justice Morrison Waite, and Justices Stephen J. Field and Stanley Matthews. Standing, from left to right: Justices William B. Woods, Samuel Blatchford, John Marshall Harlan, and Horace Gray. (The Justices are not standing in the correct seniority order. Justice John Marshall Harlan, the 5th most senior Justice, should be seated in the first chair from the right. Instead, Justice Stanley Matthews, the 7th most senior justice, is seated in that chair.)

The Civil Rights Act of 1875: ‘‘That 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, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1875: ‘‘That 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, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.”

Eight years after it was enacted, eight Justices voted to invalidate the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Justice John Marshall Harlan was the lone dissenter.

Justice Bradley explained that “civil rights, such as are guaranteed by the Constitution against State aggression, cannot be impaired by the wrongful acts of individuals, unsupported by State authority in the shape of laws, customs, or judicial or executive proceedings.”

Comparing the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Equal Protection Clause

The Equal Protection Clause also protects rights against against state inaction. The states now had an affirmative duty to enforce the rights of all people, white and black, male and female. That is, the government had to act to protect them from both governmental and private deprivations of their constitutional rights, including the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”

Congress could also enact laws that were “necessary and proper” to abolish all badges and incidents of slavery.”

The majority inquired whether “the denial to any person of admission to the accommodations and privileges of an inn, a public conveyance, or a theatre [subjects] that person to any form of servitude, or tend[s] to fasten upon him any badge of slavery?”

Justice Bradley observed that applying the Civil Rights Act “to every act of discrimination . . . . would be running the slavery argument into the ground.” He concluded that “Mere discriminations on account of race or color were not regarded as badges of slavery.”

Since slavery “rested wholly upon the inferiority, as a race, of those held in bondage,” Justice Harlan observed, “their freedom necessarily involved immunity from, and protection against, all discrimination against them, because of their race, in respect of such civil rights as belong to freemen of other races.”

“The one underlying purpose of congressional legislation has been to enable the black race to take the rank of mere citizens. The difficulty has been to compel a recognition of the legal right of the black race to take the rank of citizens, and to secure the enjoyment of privileges belonging, under the law, to them as a component part of the people for whose welfare and happiness government is ordained.”

Several years after Strauder was decided, federal prosecutors indicted the owners of segregated businesses across the country. Some of the cases involved “denying to persons of color the accommodations and privileges of an inn or hotel.” Contrary to common misconceptions, segregation was not limited to the Southern states. For example, Maguire’s theater in San Francisco “refus[ed] a colored person a seat in the dress circle.” And, the Grand Opera House in New York denied “another person, whose color is not stated, the full enjoyment of the accommodations.”

In each prosecution, the business owner raised the same defense: The indictments were unconstitutional because Congress lacked the power to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Each of these appeals was consolidated in a case known, fittingly, as the Civil Rights Cases. Eight years after it was enacted, eight Justices voted to declare unconstitutional the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Justice John Marshall Harlan was the lone dissenter.