Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 [Segregation]
1883, Washington, New York
Court Opinion Delivered by: Justice Joseph P. Bradley
Attorney for the Plaintiff: Solicitor General United States; William M. Randolph
Attorney for the Defendant: W.Y.C. Humes
The 1883 Supreme Court decision in the Civil Rights Cases held that neither the Civil Rights Act of 1875 nor the Fourteenth Amendment protected individuals from discrimination by other individuals. More specifically, the Court ruled unconstitutional those provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that prohibited racial discrimination in inns, public conveyances, and places of public amusement. The Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment only prohibited state curtailment of individual rights. Only the states, moreover, could act to prevent individuals from racial discrimination by other individuals. The lone dissenter on the Court, Justice John Marshal Harlan (Associate Justice 1877-1911), argued that the Thirteenth Amendment guaranteed freedom of individuals from all the incidents and “badges of slavery.” The Court’s majority decision essentially required the federal government to withdraw from all civil rights enforcement--a withdrawal that lasted until the late 1940s. The five cases comprising the Civil Rights Cases involved instances where African Americans had been refused admission to hotels or theaters and access to the “Ladies” car on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad.