The records show that the plaintiffs in error relied upon, and asserted throughout the entire course of the litigation in the State courts, that the grant of privileges in the charter of defend ant, which they were contesting, was a violation of the most important provisions of the thirteenth and fourteenth articles of amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The jurisdiction and the duty of this court to review the judgment of the State court on those ques-cise of the business of butchering is necessary to tions is clear and is imperative. the daily subsistence of the population of the city.

doing them an injury, is a question open to considerations to be hereafter stated. But it is not true that it deprives the butchers of the right to exercise their trade, or imposes upon them any restriction incompatible with its successful pursuit, or furnishing the people of the city with the necessary daily supply of animal food.

The act divides itself into two main grants of privilege-the one in reference to stock-landings and stock-yards, and the other to slaughterhouses. That the landing of live stock in large droves from steamboats on the bank of the river and from railroad trains should, for the safety and comfort of the people and the care of the animals, be limited to proper places, and those not numerous, needs no argument to prove it. Nor can it be injurious to the general community that while the duty of making ample preparation for this is imposed upon a few men, or a corporation, they should, to enable them to do it successfully, have the exclusive right of providing such landing places, and receiving a fair compensation for the service.

It is, however, the slaughter-house privilege, which is mainly relied on to justify the charges of gross injustice to the public, and invasion of private right.

It is not and cannot be successfully controverted, that it is both the right and the duty of the legislative body-the supreme power of the State or municipality-to prescribe and determine the localities where the business of slaughtering for a great city may be conducted. To do this effectively it is indispensable that all persons who slaughter animals for food shall do it in those places and nowhere else.

The statute under consideration defines these localities, and forbids slaughtering in any other. It does not, as has been asserted, prevent the butcher from doing his own slaughtering. On the contrary, the slaughter-house company is required, under a heavy penalty, to permit any person who wishes to do so, to slaughter in their houses; and they are bound to make ample provision for the convenience of all the slaughtering for the entire city. The butcher, then, is still permitted to slaughter, to prepare, and to sell his own meats; but he is required to slaughter at a specified place, and to pay a reasonable compensation for the use of the accommodations furnished him at that place.

| pel cars, the building with combustible materials, and the burial of the dead, may all," says Chanchellor Kent, (2 Commentaries, 340,) “be interdicted by law, in the midst of dense masses of population, on the general and rational principle, that every person ought to so use his property as not to injure his neighbors; and that private interests must be made subservient to the general interests of the community." This is called the police power; and it is declared by Chief Justice Shaw, that it is much easier to perceive and realize the existence and sources of it than to mark its boundaries or prescribe limits to its exercise. (Commonwealth vs. Alger, 7 Cushing, 84.)

This power is, and must be, from its very nature, incapable of any very exact definition or limitation. Upon it depends the security of social order, the life and health of the citizen, the comfort of an existence in a thickly populated community, the enjoyment of private and social life, and the beneficial use of property. It extends, says another eminent judge, to the protection of the lives, limbs, health, comfort, and quiet of all persons, and the protection of all property within the State; * and persons and property are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State. Of the perfect right of the legislature to do this no question ever was, or, upon acknowledged general principles, ever can be made, so far as natural persons are concerned." (Thorpe vs. Rutland and Burlington R. R. Co., 27 Vermont R., 149.)

* *

The regulation of the place and manner of conducting the slaughtering of animals, and the business of butchering within a city, and the inspection of the animals to be killed for meat, and of the meat afterwards, are among the most necessary and frequent exercises of this power. It is not, therefore, needed that we should seek for a comprehensive definition, but rather look for the proper source of its exercise.

In Gibbons vs. Ogden, (9 Wheaton, 203,) Chief Justice Marshall, speaking of inspection laws passed by the States, says: They form a portion of that immense mass of legislation which controls everything within the territory of a State not surrendered to the general govern ment-all which can be most advantageously The wisdom of the monopoly granted by the administered by the States themselves. InspecLegislature may be open to question, but it is tion laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every difficult to see a justification for the assertion description, as well as laws for regulating the that the butchers are deprived of the right to internal commerce of a State, and those which labor in their occupation, or the people of their respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are compodaily service in preparing food, or how this stat-nent parts. No direct general power over these ute, with the duties and guards imposed upon the company, can be said to destroy the business of the butcher, or seriously interfere with its pursuit.

objects is granted to Congress; and consequently they remain subject to State legislation.'

The exclusive authority of State legislation over this subject is strikingly illustrated in the case of the City of New York vs. Miln, (11 Pet. 102.). In that case the defendant was prosecuted for failing to comply with a statute of New York which required of every master of a vessel arriv

The power here exercised by the legislature of Louisiana is, in its essential nature, one which has been, up to the present period in the constitutional history of this country, always conceded to belong to the States, however it may now being from a foreign port, in that of New York city, questioned in some of its details.

"Unwholesome trades, slaughter-houses, operations offensive to the senses, the deposit of powder, the application of steam power to pro

to report the names of all his passengers, with certain particulars of their age, occupation, last place of settlement, and place of their birth. It was argued that this act was an invasion of the

exclusive right of Congress to regulate commerce. | exception to the validity of the statute. And in And it cannot be denied that such a statute op- this respect we are not able to see that these erated at least indirectly upon the commercial privileges are especially odious or objectionable. intercourse between the citizens of the United The duty imposed as a consideration for the privStates and of foreign countries. But notwith-ilege is well defined, and its enforcement well standing this it was held to be an exercise of the guarded. The prices or charges to be made by police power properly within the control of the the company are limited by the statute, and we State, and unaffected by the clause of the Con- are not advised that they are on the whole exorstitution which conferred on Congress the right bitant or unjust. to regulate commerce.

To the same purpose are the recent cases of The License Tax, (5 Wall., 471,) and United States vs. De Witt, (9 Wall., 41.) In the latter case an act of Congress which undertook as a part of the internal revenue laws to make it a misdemeanor to mix for sale naphtha and illuminating oils, or to sell oil of petroleum inflam mable at less than a prescribed temperature, was held to be void, because as a police regulation the power to make such a law belonged to the States, and did not belong to Congress.

The proposition is therefore reduced to these terms: Can any exclusive privileges be granted to any of its citizens, or to a corporation, by the legislature of a State?

The eminent and learned counsel who has twice argued the negative of this question, has displayed a research into the history of monopolies in England and the European continent only equaled by the eloquence with which they are denounced.

and the people represented in Parliament.

But it is to be observed that all such references are to monopolies established by the monIt cannot be denied that the statute under con- arch in derogation of the rights of his subjects, sideration is aptly framed to remove from the or arise out of transactions in which the people more densely populated part of the city the nox- were unrepresented, and their interests uncared ious slaughter houses and large and offensive for. The great case of The Monopolies reported collection of animals necessarily incident to the by Coke, and so fully stated in the brief, was slaughtering business of a large city, and to lo- undoubtedly a contest of the commons against cate them where the convenience, health, and the monarch. The decision is based upon the comfort of the people require they shall be located. ground that it was against common law, and the And it must be conceded that the means adopted argument was aimed at the unlawful assumption by the act for this purpose are appropriate, are of power by the crown; for whoever doubted the stringent, and effectual. But it is said that in authority of Parliament to change or modify the creating a corporation for this purpose, and con- common law? The discussion in the House of ferring upon it exclusive privileges-privileges Commons cited from Macaulay clearly estabwhich it is said constitute à monopoly-the leg-lishes that the contest was between the crown islature has exceeded its power. If this statute had imposed on the city of New Orleans precisely the same duties, accompanied by the same privileges, which it has on the corporation which it created, it is believed that no question would have been raised as to its constitutionality. In that case the effect on the butchers in pursuit of their occupation, and on the public, would have been the same as it is now. Why cannot the legislature confer the same powers on another corporation, created for a lawful and useful public object, that it can on the municipal corporation already existing? That wherever a legislature has the right to accomplish a certain result, and that result is best attained by means of a corporation, it has the right to create such a corporation, and to endow it with the powers necessary to effect the desired and lawful purpose, seems hardly to admit of debate. The proposition is ably discussed and affirmed in the case of McCulloch vs. The State of Maryland, (4 Wheaton, 316,) in relation to the power of Congress to organize the Bank of the United States to aid in the fiscal operations of the Govern

ment

It can readily be seen that the interested vigilance of the corporation created by the Louisiana legislature will be more efficient in enforcing the limitation prescribed for the stock landing and slaughtering business for the good of the city than the ordinary efforts of the officers of the law.

Unless, therefore, it can be maintained that the exclusive privilege granted by this charter to the corporation 18 beyond the power of the legislature of Louisiana, there can be no just

But we think it may be safely affirmed that the Parliament of Great Britain, representing the people in their legislative functions, and the legislative bodies of this country, have, from time immemorial to the present day, continued to grant to persons and corporations exclusive privileges-privileges denied to other citizensprivileges which come within any just definition of the word monopoly as much as those now under consideration, and that the power to do this has never been questioned or denied. Nor can it be truthfully denied that some of the most useful nd beneficial enterprises set on foot for the general good have been made successful by means of these exclusive rights, and could only have been conducted to success in that way.

It may, therefore, be considered as established that the authority of the legislature of Louisiana to pass the present statute is ample, unless some restraint in the exercise of that power be found in the constitution of that State or in the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, adopted since the date of the decisions we have already cited.

If any such restraint is supposed to exist in the constitution of the State, the Supreme Court of Louisiana having necessarily passed on that question, it would not be open to review in this court.

Plaintiffs in error, accepting this issue, allege that the statute is a violation of the Constitution of the United States in these several particulars:

That it creates an involuntary servitude forbidden by the thirteenth article of amendment.

That it abridges the privileges and immunities | the rebellion, and whatever auxiliary causes may of citizens of the United States.

That it denies to the plaintiffs the equal protection of the laws; and

That it deprives them of their property without due process of law, contrary to the provisions of the first section of the fourteenth article of amendment.

This court is thus called upon for the first time to give construction to these articles.

We do not conceal from ourselves the great responsibility which this duty devolves upon us. No questions so far reaching and pervading in their consequences, so profoundly interesting to the people of this country, and so important in their bearing upon the relations of the United States, and of the several States to each other and to the citizens of the States and of the United States, have been before this court during the official life of any of its present members. We have given every opportunity for a full hearing at the bar; we have discussed it freely and compared views among ourselves; we have taken ample time for careful deliberation; and we now propose to announce the judgments which we have formed in the construction of those articles, so far as we have found them necessary to the decision of the cases before us; and beyond that we have neither the inclination nor the right

to go.

Twelve articles of amendment were added to the federal Constitution soon after the original organization of the Government under it in 1789. Of these all but the last were adopted so soon afterwards as to justify the statement that they were practically cotemporaneous with the adoption of the original; and the twelfth, adopted in eighteen hundred and three, was so nearly so as to have become, like all the others, historical and of another age. But within the last eight years three other articles of amendment of vast importance have been added by the voice of the people to that now venerable instrument.

have contributed to bring about this war, undoubtedly the overshadowing and efficient cause was African slavery.

In that struggle slavery, as a legalized social relation, perished. It perished as a necessity of the bitterness and force of the conflict. When the armies of freedom found themselves upon the soil of slavery they could do nothing less than free the poor victims whose enforced servitude was the foundation of the quarrel. And when hard pressed in the contest these men (for they proved themselves men in that terrible crisis) offered their services and were accepted by thousands to aid in suppressing the unlawful rebel lion, slavery was at an end wherever the federal government succeeded in that purpose. The proclamation of President Lincoln expressed an accomplished fact as to a large portion of the insurrectionary districts, when he declared slavery abolished in them all. But the war being over, those who had succeeded in re-establishing the authority of the federal government were not content to permit this great act of emancipation to rest on the actual results of the contest or the proclamation of the Executive, both of which might have been questioned in after times, and they determined to place this main and most valuable result in the Constitution of the restored Union as one of its fundamental articles. Hence the thirteenth article of amendment of that instrument. Its two short sections seem hardly to admit of construction, so vigorous is their expression and so appropriate to the purpose we have indicated.

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

jurisdiction of this government—a declaration designed to establish the freedom of four millions of slaves-and with a microscopic search endeavor to find in it a reference to servitudes, which may have been attached to property in certain localities, requires an effort, to say the least of it.

To withdraw the mind from the contemplation The most cursory glance at these articles dis- of this grand yet simple declaration of the percloses a unity of purpose, when taken in connec-sonal freedom of all the human race within the tion with the history of the times, which cannot fail to have an important bearing on any question of doubt concerning their true meaning. Nor can such doubts, when any reasonably exist, be safely and rationally solved without a reference to that history; for in it is found the occasion and the necessity for recurring again to the great source of power in this country, the people of That a personal servitude was meant is proved the States, for additional guarantees of human by the use of the word “involuntary," which can rights; additional powers to the federal gov-only apply to human beings. The exception of ernment; additional restraints upon those of the States. Fortunately that history is fresh within the memory of us all, and its leading features, as they bear upon the matter before us, free from

doubt.

The institution of African slavery, as it existed in about half the States of the Union, and the contests pervading the public mind for many years, between those who desired its curtailment and ultimate extinction and those who desired additional safeguards for its security and perpetuation, culminated in the effort, on the part of most of the States in which slavery existed, to separate from the federal government and to resist its authority. This constituted the war of

servitude as a punishment for crime gives an idea of the class of servitude that is meant. The word servitude is of larger meaning than slavery, as the latter is popularly understood in this country, and the obvious purpose was to forbid all shades and conditions of African slavery. It was very well understood that in the form of apprenticeship for long terms, as it had been practiced in the West India Islands, on the abolition of slavery by the English government, or by reducing the slaves to the condition of serfs attached to the plantation, the purpose of the article might have been evaded, if only the word slavery had been used. The case of the apprentice slave, held under a law of Maryland, liber