Slaughter-House Cases
The Court upheld a Louisiana law giving one corporation the exclusive right to operate slaughterhouses across a large swath of New Orleans, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment does not protect a citizen's right to practice a trade against state economic regulation.
In the first major interpretation of the Reconstruction Amendments, the Court gave the Fourteenth Amendment's 'privileges or immunities' protection an extremely narrow reading — limiting it to a small set of rights tied specifically to federal citizenship — a holding that would significantly constrain the amendment's reach for more than a century.
“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.”
The majority explaining why the monopoly law did not, in its view, actually deprive butchers of their trade.
Why this is a landmark case
The Slaughter-House Cases produced the Supreme Court's first interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and by narrowly construing the Privileges or Immunities Clause it shaped—and arguably stunted—the development of constitutional rights for the next century and a half. By a 5-4 vote, the Court held that the clause protects only a small set of rights of national citizenship—such as the right to travel between states, to access the federal government, or to use navigable waters—rather than the broad civil rights people hold as citizens of a state.
The practical effect was to leave the Privileges or Immunities Clause nearly inert. As a result, the expansion of individual liberties against the states—free speech, the right to counsel, protection from unreasonable searches—was later channeled instead through the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, including the doctrine of 'incorporation' that applies most of the Bill of Rights to the states.
Its significance endures as the case that set Fourteenth Amendment doctrine on its peculiar path. Scholars across the ideological spectrum have criticized it, and some justices—notably Justice Thomas in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010)—have urged reviving the Privileges or Immunities Clause to do the work the Court declined to give it in 1873.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Louisiana passed a law in 1869 granting the Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company a 25-year exclusive right to all livestock landing and slaughtering across three parishes — including the city of New Orleans — covering more than 1,100 square miles and roughly 200,000–300,000 people. Around 1,000 independent butchers who had previously operated their own slaughterhouses were required to pay fees to use the monopoly company's facilities and were forbidden from slaughtering animals anywhere else.
The question before the Court
Did Louisiana's grant of a 25-year monopoly on slaughterhouse operations to a single corporation violate the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendments by stripping New Orleans butchers of their right to practice their trade?
The Court's answer
No — the Court upheld the Louisiana monopoly. The majority drew a sharp line between two types of citizenship created by the Fourteenth Amendment: citizenship of the United States and citizenship of a state. The Privileges or Immunities Clause, the Court ruled, protects only rights tied to federal citizenship — such as access to government offices, protection on the high seas, and use of navigable waterways. The right to practice a trade or occupation is a privilege of state citizenship, not federal citizenship, and states remain free to regulate it.
The Court also rejected the butchers' claims under the Thirteenth Amendment (finding no "involuntary servitude" in an ordinary business regulation), the Due Process Clause (finding no recognized interpretation that would treat this regulation as a deprivation of property), and the Equal Protection Clause (finding that clause was aimed at racial discrimination against Black Americans, not at economic monopoly laws). Louisiana's regulation of the slaughterhouse industry was upheld as a valid exercise of state police power.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The majority began by reading the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments together in light of their shared history. It found a single 'pervading purpose' running through all three: securing the freedom of formerly enslaved Black Americans and protecting them from state oppression. This purpose, the Court said, must guide interpretation of any ambiguous clause in these amendments.
- On the Thirteenth Amendment, the Court rejected the claim that Louisiana's law imposed 'involuntary servitude.' That amendment was aimed at abolishing African slavery and related forms of compelled servitude — such as apprenticeships designed to recreate slave-like conditions. Requiring butchers to use a single licensed facility is an ordinary business regulation, not the kind of compelled labor the amendment was designed to eliminate.
- Turning to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court identified what it called a decisive textual choice: the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects rights of 'citizens of the United States' — not 'citizens of the several States.' The Court said this distinction was deliberate. U.S. citizenship and state citizenship are separate, each carrying its own set of rights. The clause protects only the former.
- The Court defined privileges of U.S. citizenship narrowly: access to federal offices and institutions, protection of life and liberty abroad or on the high seas, use of navigable waters, treaty rights, the ability to move between states and gain residency there, and rights secured by the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The right to practice a trade like butchering is a privilege of state citizenship — historically left to state law — not a federal one.
- Because the butchers' claimed right fell under state citizenship, the Privileges or Immunities Clause gave them no protection against Louisiana's law. The Due Process Clause did not help either — no recognized interpretation would treat a standard business regulation as a 'deprivation of property.' The Equal Protection Clause was focused on race-based discrimination against freed Black Americans, which this monopoly law did not involve.
- Finally, the Court upheld the Louisiana law as a legitimate exercise of state police power — the inherent authority every state has to regulate for public health and safety. Concentrating slaughter operations in a designated district below the city was a reasonable way to protect a dense urban population from health hazards. The wisdom of granting monopoly form to accomplish that goal might be questioned, the Court noted, but the choice belongs to the legislature, not the federal courts.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Abrogates Dred Scott
The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship clause renders Dred Scott's holding that Black Americans cannot be citizens entirely void.
Distinguishes Corfield v. Coryell
The Court adopted Corfield's definition of fundamental privileges but limited it to state citizenship, placing it outside the Fourteenth Amendment's federal protection.