Slaughter-House Cases

Common card · No. 334601

The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that ruled that the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution only protects the legal rights that are associated with federal U.S. citizenship, not those that pertain to state citizenship. Though the decision in the Slaughter-House Cases minimized the impact of the Privileges or Immunities Clause on state law, the Supreme Court would later incorporate the Bill of Rights through substantive due process. Ostensibly seeking to improve sanitary conditions, the Louisiana legislature and the city of New Orleans had established a corporation charged with regulating the slaughterhouse industry. Members of the Butchers' Benevolent Association challenged the constitutionality of the corporation's monopoly, claiming that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The amendment had been ratified in the aftermath of the American Civil War with the primary...

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