Civil Rights Cases
The Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, ruling that Congress had no constitutional power to outlaw racial discrimination by private businesses like inns, railroads, and theaters.
The Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment only lets Congress correct discriminatory action by state governments, not punish private individuals, and that refusing service to someone because of race is not a form of slavery covered by the Thirteenth Amendment. The ruling left private discrimination unregulated by federal law for decades.
“It is State action of a particular character that is prohibited. Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject-matter of the amendment.”
The majority's core reasoning that the Fourteenth Amendment restrains only government, not private actors.
How it got here: Several criminal prosecutions and one civil suit under the Civil Rights Act of 1875 reached the Court on certified questions or writs of error from federal circuit courts.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Several cases were consolidated involving Black citizens who were denied equal treatment at an inn, a theater, and on a train, and who sued or were prosecuted under the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which barred racial discrimination in public accommodations like inns, trains, and theaters and made violations a crime and a civil wrong.
The question before the Court
Could Congress ban race discrimination by private inns, trains, and theaters using its power under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments?
Why it matters
The decision meant Black Americans had no federal legal recourse when private businesses refused them service, opening the door to widespread segregation in public accommodations that would persist for nearly a century until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under different constitutional authority.
What changes now
The ruling was final and left the challenged sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 void, with no further proceedings needed to enforce them; the individual prosecutions and lawsuits under those sections could not continue. The decision stood as controlling law on Congress's power over private discrimination until later civil rights legislation was instead grounded in Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly did not decide whether equal access to inns, transportation, and theaters is itself a fundamental right, whether the law could validly apply to the federal territories or the District of Columbia, or whether Congress could regulate such discrimination using its power over interstate commerce.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Harlan
“I cannot resist the conclusion that the substance and spirit of the recent amendments of the Constitution have been sacrificed by a subtle and ingenious verbal criticism.”Harlan's central objection that the majority's reasoning defeated the amendments' purpose through technicality.
Justice Harlan argued the majority read the amendments too narrowly and with excessive verbal technicality. He contended the Thirteenth Amendment let Congress directly ban the 'badges of slavery,' including discriminatory exclusion from inns, trains, and theaters, which he viewed as quasi-public entities bound to serve everyone equally. He also argued the Fourteenth Amendment's grant of citizenship was itself an affirmative right Congress could protect directly, not merely a prohibition requiring prior state misconduct before Congress could act.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read the Fourteenth Amendment as a limit only on state governments — it forbids states from denying equal protection or due process, but says nothing about the conduct of private individuals or businesses.
- Because the amendment only prohibits state action, the Court reasoned that Congress's power to 'enforce' the amendment is limited to correcting or nullifying harmful state laws or state conduct, not to writing brand-new rules of private conduct from scratch — a distinction the Court called 'corrective' versus 'direct and primary' legislation.
- Applying that distinction, the Court found the 1875 Act was direct and primary legislation regulating private innkeepers, carriers, and theater owners without any requirement that a state law or state official had done anything discriminatory, so it could not be justified under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Turning to the Thirteenth Amendment, which bans slavery and lets Congress erase its 'badges and incidents,' the Court asked whether a private business's refusal to serve someone because of race amounted to a badge of slavery.
- The Court concluded that being refused a hotel room, train seat, or theater ticket is an ordinary civil injury, not a mark of slavery, because free Black people before the Civil War experienced such treatment without anyone considering it enslavement.
- Having found no textual hook in either amendment for regulating private discrimination directly, the Court concluded Congress lacked authority to pass the first and second sections of the 1875 Act, so those sections were void.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms United States v. Cruikshank (92 U.S. 542)
The majority relies on this case's rule that the Fourteenth Amendment restrains only state action, not private individuals.
Distinguishes Ex parte Virginia (100 U.S. 339)
The Court treats this jury-discrimination case as valid corrective legislation, unlike the broader 1875 Act at issue here.