Slaughterhouse Cases Narrow 14th Amendment Privileges and Immunities

In the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), the first Supreme Court interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the Court ruled 5–4 that the Amendment protected only a narrow category of 'privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States' (such as access to federal offices and ports), not the broad civil rights that were subject to state regulation. The decision effectively bifurcated citizenship and stripped the 14th Amendment of much of its potential to protect freedpeople from state-sponsored discrimination. Justice Miller's majority opinion ensured that most civil rights protection remained with the states — which had no interest in protecting Black citizens.