place the citizens of each state upon the same footing with citizens of other states, so far as the advantages resulting from citizenship in those states are concerned. It relieves them from the disabilities of alienage in other states; it inhibits discriminating legislation against them by other states; it gives them the right of free ingress into other states, and egress from them; it insures to them in other states the same freedom possessed by the citizens of those states in the acquisition and enjoyment of property and in the pursuit of happiness; and it secures to them in other states the equal protection of the laws. It has been justly said that no provision in the Constitution has tended so strongly to constitute the citizens of the United States one people as this. But the privileges and immunities secured to citizens of each state in the several states are those which are common to the citizens in the latter states under their Constitution and laws by virtue of their being citizens. Special privileges enjoyed by citizens in their own states are not secured in other states by this provision. It was not intended thereby to give to the laws of one state any operation in other states. The special privileges which they confer must be enjoyed at home."1 Applying these principles, it was held that a grant of corporate franchises and powers to certain persons by the laws of one state was a special privilege conferred upon such persons, not held by them in virtue of their citizenship, and that it could not be enjoyed by them in another state against the consent of the latter. In a still later case the court used the following language: Attempt will not be made to define the words 'privileges and immunities,' nor to specify the rights which they were intended to secure beyond what may be necessary to the decision of this case. The clause plainly includes the right of a citizen of one state to pass into any other state for the purpose of engaging in lawful commerce, trade, or business without molestation; to acquire personal property; to take and hold real estate; to maintain actions in the courts of the state; and to be exempt from any higher taxes and ex1 Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 180, per Field, J.

66

cises than are imposed by the state on its own citizens." 1 In accordance with this general statement of doctrine, a statute of Maryland imposing a special and discriminating tax in the form of a license fee upon citizens of other states trading or carrying on business within its territory was held to be void. And this decision has been followed in several subsequent cases.

A state law forbidding citizens of other states from removing causes from the state court to the United States court, when their own citizens could do so under like circumstances, has been held unconstitutional.2

§ 256 d. The Fourteenth Amendment. The first case under the fourteenth amendment arose out of a statute passed by the Legislature of Louisiana, in 1869, creating a corporation called the Slaughter-House Company. This company was empowered to construct and maintain stock-landings and yards and a grand abattoir or slaughter-house at á specified place near New Orleans, and all cattle and other live stock brought to that city for food were required to be landed and kept at these yards, and slaughtered at this abattoir, the company being authorized to demand compensation, the maximum rates of which were fixed by the stat ute. Landing or slaughtering such animals elsewhere was prohibited by heavy penalties. The exclusive privilege thus conferred was to continue for twenty-five years. Certain persons, engaged in the trade of butchering, residents of New Orleans and citizens of the United States, brought appropriate actions in the state courts to test the validity of this statute. These suits were finally carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. Three constitutional objections were urged against the statute: first, that it violated the thirteenth amendment by creating an "involuntary servitude;" second, that it violated the fourteenth amendment by abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens. of the United States; third, that it violated the same

1 Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, 430, per Clifford, J.

2 Insurance Co. v. Morse, 20 Wall. 445, 458; Doyle v. Continental Ins. Co., 94 U. S. 535.

amendment by denying to the plaintiffs the equal protection of the laws. The main reliance, however, was placed upon the second of these objections. The Supreme Court by a bare majority affirmed the validity of the statute.1 The prevailing opinion, which was delivered by Mr. Justice. Miller, contains the following positions as the grounds of the decisions. This statute is an exercise of the ordinary police power of the state, clearly within the competency of the Legislature, unless forbidden by some provision of the recent amendments. The question for decision is said to be this: Can any exclusive privileges be granted to any of its citizens, or to a corporation, by the legislature of a state? In answering this question, it was held that the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments were different steps in the accomplishment of one final object, the abolition of slavery and the perfect freedom and protection of the negro race. Although expressed in general terms, the pri mary design and main purport of the fourteenth amendment was to confirm the status of the negroes as citizens, and to prevent the enactment of state laws which would discriminate against them. Taking up the three above named objections in turn, the court decides in reference to the first, and in this particular all the judges were agreed, - that the thirteenth amendment had no application whatever to the case; that the "involuntary servitude" prohibited by it referred exclusively to some species of personal slavery; not, indeed, African slavery, or absolute slavery necessarily, but to some kind of constrained service like peonage. Of the correctness of this conclusion there can be no doubt. Passing to the second objection, the import and effect of the first section of the fourteenth amendment are discussed at great length. The Constitution is made by it for the first time to define citizenship of the United States, and it is declared that citizenship of the United States may exist separate and independent from citizenship of the several states. In fact, citizenship of the United States is made

Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36. See also Green v. The State, 73 Ala. 32; Barthet v. New Orleans, 24 Fed. Rep. 563 (1885). Ed.

to be the primary status, and that of the states flows from it as a consequence. After thus defining the status of citi zenship, the succeeding clause is as follows: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." This prohibition is confined to those privileges and immunities which belong to citizens of the United States as such; it does not embrace those belonging to citizens of the several states. As there are the two kinds of citizenship, so there are privileges and immunities appertaining to each. This provision in express terms is limited to one class, and leaves the other where it was before, under the protection of the state laws and the state courts. Nor does the amendment purport to define, much less to create, any "privileges or immunities " which are peculiar to national citizenship. The court forbears to enumerate these privileges and immunities, and the opinion upon this particular subject is very unsatisfactory. It plainly implies, however, that the ordinary fundamental rights belonging to all persons to hold and acquire property, to engage in trade and all lawful kinds of business, to labor in different callings, and the like, are not among the privileges and immunities which belong to United States citizenship as such, and are not protected by this provision against state legislation. The court finally examined the third ground of objection. The language of the amendment is: "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." Under no judicial construction ever given to the familiar terms of this clause can it be claimed with any propriety that the statute in question deprives the complainants of their liberty or of their property. The last provision of all,

"nor shall any state deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," was, as a matter of history, aimed exclusively at state statutes which were onesided and oppressive in their effect upon the emancipated blacks. Mr. Justice Miller says, in reference to it: "We doubt very much whether any action of a state not di

rected by way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will ever be held to come within the purview of this provision. It is so clearly a provision for that race and that emergency that a strong case would be necessary for its application to any other."

Four members of the court, Field, Swayne, and Bradley, JJ., and Chase, C. J., dissented. In their opinion the fourteenth amendment, although adopted on the occasion of the great change in civil and political status of the blacks, was not confined in its operation to them, nor did it in fact refer to them or allude to them in its first section as a distinct class. Agreeing with the majority that a distinction is made between citizens of the United States and those of the states, and that the provision under consideration was intended only to protect the privileges and immunities of the former from invasion by the states, they hold that these privileges and immunities are the same fundamental, absolute rights which appertain to persons as citizens of the several states. The second section of the fourth article, using these very terms, declares that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." The court had frequently decided that the rights here referred to are those which belong to citizens of the states as such, and include the rights of free ingress and egress, of acquiring, holding, and transmitting property, of carrying on all lawful trades and occupations, and of equality before the laws. The minority argued that the same rights which by this original article were secured to state citizens against discriminating state legisla tion were by the fourteenth amendment secured to citizens. of the nation against the same legislation. In short, the object of this clause of the amendment was to afford the same protection to all persons as citizens of the United States against local oppressive laws which the Constitution originally afforded to all persons in their character as citizens of the several states. The statute, moreover, violated the fourteenth amendment in another particular, in that it denied to the complainants the equal protection of the laws