Decisions. Number 759, bernies miranda, Petitioner Versus arizona. Number 218, roe v. Wade. The most famous decisions are once that the court took were quite unpopular. Lets go through a few cases that illustrate very dramatically and visually what it means to live in a society of 310 million different people, who helped stick together because they believe in the rule of law. Good evening. Welcome to cspan in the National Constitution centers landmark cases. Our 12 part series looks at some of the Supreme Courts most interesting and impactful historical decisions over the course of our countrys history. We are going to be talking about a case you might not know much about, but by the and you understand why it is on our last. Its called the slaughterhouse cases, it was the first time that the Supreme Court reviewed the newly enacted 14th amendment to the constitution. Let me introduce you to our two guests, here to tell you about the history and importance of these cases. Paul clement served as solicitor general during the bush 43 administration, and he is argued more than 75 cases before the Supreme Court. Paula, great to have you. Thanks, nice to be here. Michael ross is illegal historian and the author of a biography of the justice youll be hearing about tonight, samuel freemen miller. Its called justice, a shattered dream. He teaches at the university of maryland. Thanks for coming. Well, i just want to have to make the case to the audience, why is this on our list. Why didnt the slaughterhouse calluses matter . The reason is, as you suggested, the first opportunity the Supreme Court has to interpret the 14th amendment. The reason that is so important is that the 14th amendment is what essentially takes the guarantees of the bill of rights eventually and constrains the actions of the State Governments, if you think about the bill of rights, the first ten amendments to the constitution, all of them by their terms were really designed to restrict the federal government. And what it did to the people in the citizens, and thats really at this point that we go through a civil war where people finally realize that it will be the State Governments that they are concerned about. There is a process of adding the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. They were strict with states, they are tremendously important in slaughterhouse cases for the very first time the Supreme Court interprets the 14th amendment. Mike ross, in your book you said this decision influenced the course of Race Relations for a century. And it continues to shape constitutional law today. Make the case. Well, in the slaughterhouse cases clause for the debate among historians and all professors and legal scholars ever since it is the privileges and im in the closets. The question of what that meant and whether or not it actually applied to the bill of rights. And the slaughterhouse cases, the Supreme Court goes down the road of the amenities clause does not do that. And it becomes a long entangled story of how your bill of rights rights individually get incorporated against your State Government. This is also an extraordinarily important case because the civil war does not end on a deck of a battleship like at the end of world war ii, and it takes a long time before congress decide what their terms are going to be to the defeated south for them to regain their place in the union. Many people see the 14th amendment as that history, agree to the terms and we will allow you to have a restored place. The slaughterhouse cases really are about slaughterhouses and butchers, will learn more about how this case began and how it made its way to the Supreme Court. First, lets back up and learn more about the 14th amendment itself. If you watch last week, we did the dred scott decision. And we learned at the end of the program that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment really a remedy for that decision the terrible decision made at the droughts got case. Lets listen to senator Patrick Leahy of vermont who is the senior democrat on the Senate Judiciary committee talking about the 14th amendment and why that was such an important thing for the United States of america. Lets listen. The 14th amendment . Thats 150 years now since the second founding, part of the second founding. Why do you call it . That well, i think we had the founding. The fathers and the original constitution, but when those series of amendments came through, its like the United States became more aware of what they are and what slavery ending and so on, that we had to treat all people the same. Having considered now, it took a long time, and in some places in this country its still going on. But it was in the second founding and the Second Coming up the United States. Similarly he thinking about the second founding of our country. Just so you understand the Legal Framework of our discussion. It says, all persons born and naturalize in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction of, and our citizens of the United States. No state summit or enforce any law which should approve the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of the law, nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. You heard our guests talk about the privileges and immunities clause which is the heart of the legal challenges of this case. So set the stage for the passage of the 14th amendment. Obviously, after droughts got, the country passes the civil war. Tell us how it caykyc when the civil war, and there is no peace. However, the man who does it is andrew johnson. Theyre able to be reelected, immediately after the civil war without giving African American men the right to vote that philip with confederates, and we can to pass the black coats. They only apply to black people, and say that black people cannot meet after sundown, but it also had much more onerous laws attached, that each january African Americans had to produce a document showing where they were going to work from the coming year. They were sentenced to work on a plantation to pay off the fine for the coming year, and the core of the black code list to end store slavery inform, if not in law. And the black old shocked a lot of people, it seemed that over 700,000 americans dead, the warm and more than that. And when congress came back into session the following december, a long struggle goes on with president johnson as what his vision of reconstruction would be. Out of that comes the 14th amendment, which will be congress his terms of the south, and included in the language you just read, lots of phrases like the equal protection clause. If you are going to have to law that they cannot be after sundown, but you cannot have one that is specific. What about the vanquished southerners that felt as if they were and unoccupied land . You have some newly freed slaves, the friedman and taking advantage of the reopening of the south, but then you have a number of people who are in the south, they participated in the civil war. The last thing you want to see is federal authority being imposed on washington, in part because it was designed to protect the newly freed slaves. In part, they fought a war where they were trying to vindicate statesrights and although they lost the war, i dont think their hearts and minds have changed in the process. Part of what become so controversial in the south about 13th and 14th and 15th amendment was that it was it was idea of asserting the federal government will on all sorts of issues that had been left to the states governments and to the states. So, our story takes place in the reconstruction south of louisiana and new orleans. Was new orleans typical of the south, or where there other areas down there . Its the place that everyone is looking to see if reconstruction would work, because it has the afro creole community, it class a very well educated former vp persons of color that came out of the french and spanish culture. They are people who can put the lie to confederates claims that African Americans are too ignorant to serve in office. In new orleans, there is all kinds of tumult during this period, with various militias and every direction and we have africanamerican serving on juries, African Americans on the police force, African American detectives solving highprofile crimes, on the verge of integrating Public Schools, and there are a lot of people, even with the presence of afro creoles, there are a lot of white people who are extraordinarily unhappy. Now, will get into our setting the stage for the actual case. And the past couple weeks there are some big characters. There are two important characters in this, and institutions of people who are part of this. One of those is the butchers Benevolent Association, and other groups that reflect their interest. To set the stage, you do have a dynamic where the slaughter houses are in new orleans proper and there are a number of butchers who are there, a number are from gas kidney and have the tradition of being involved in the trade. Its part of their identity and i think what sets the stage for this is the idea that you have the slaughter houses that are very high population centers. Anyone who has read the jungle knows that the slaughterhouse is even 50 60 years later, but the time we are talking about here is an incredible source of pasturelands and the reason why new orleans had a reputation, not only being a place that we construction can really succeed, but also the reputation where you dont want to be there in the summer because you might not live in a pine box. The metropolis of america. When they get to court, when they filed suit, and id like to have a brief biography but they hire as their attorney this person by the name of John Campbell who is jon campbell . John campbell i call the evil genius of america, its the former Supreme Court justice who is in the majority in the jets got decision, and hes from alabama. When the civil war breaks out, he resigns to join the confederacy where he becomes Jefferson Davis is assistant secretary of war. In that role, he says a number of things that did not hold up well in the 21st century, and hes at the end of the war robert e. Lee and others in those last moments of the confederacy are opposing that they employ black church, that violates everything on which the confederacy is based. He is arrested after the Lincoln Association because they think they have a part in it, and is held in jail and come out very embittered. And will make the legal career in new orleans after radical reconstruction began fighting the reconstruction government. Virtually everything that he does, every case hes litigating is being done to thwart the reconstruction, the biracial reconstruction government of louisiana. He says things like, we have africans in a place all around us. And every day they are bartering away their duties and positions and he says anything, even violent insurrection is better than the insanity that seems to prevail. We will also be hearing about Justice Miller. You wrote the book about him. You said in the book that historians have long considered, excuse me, miller one of the courts most important justices. Can you tell us why . One of them, the slaughterhouse cases. It has such a tremendous impact on the 14th amendment that anyone who issued that opinion is going to get credit as and a important justice. But hes also a force. Miller is his big, pearly john goodman like figure who was the first justice from the trans mississippi was who prides himself on cutting through the bs when lawyers go on and on and say get to the point. I said, what point . Any point. Some point. And everyone who dealt with him on the court throughout the gilded age was just a force of nature when he entered the room. Paul, when youve been in front of these justices, id like to have you think about these justices. We have a former Supreme Court justice who resigns, despite the confederacy, represents the confederacy, arguing before his former colleagues, heres another dynamic, just as mueller who will write the opinion loathed John Campbell. Right. This is something that we have not seen in the modern era, but something believed the court, and then appeared in front of the court. Obviously, the justices are going to decide these cases, and theyre going to decide based on their view of the law. But you cant help but imagine that the personalities have something to do with it. But when you have somebody arguing the case that one of the justices has an intense, not just personal dislike about political dislike of leaving the court its something that just says mueller cant really forgive. So to be hearing the argument from that particular advocate asked to change the dynamic as a way that that justice and some of the other justices are processing the case. Time to learn more about what got this case into litigation. We are going to visit new orleans, and a piece of video. You think about new orleans in the time period, all the cattle being raised in the midwest and being brought through the mississippi for slaughter. Lots of independent voters are working there without regulation, and you learn more about the conditions that people were protesting in the violence that led to the creation of this communal property, the slaughterhouse Landing Company that the butchers were protesting. Lets watch. With all of the refuge, all of the human waste, all of the animal ways and the dunk, delivers, the hearts, with all that being dumped in the river, its no reason that the city was famous as a metropolis, the city of the dead. But 1860, there would have been at least 84 slaughterhouses, butcher shops in the general area. The whole place was one royal stench, and when most of the Meat Industry had been centralized and concentrated. Faux fur in this direction is where the towns main livestock landing was. And that is where all of the livestock was coming from the central louisiana, an estimated 300 heads of cattle and pork were dropped off, or delivered at that landing, at that wharf every year. And there would be a separate group of drivers, that with stampede through town, past schools and hospitals to all of these butcher shops. And in this direction, one block away was what was called the nooses wharf. That was where all of the awful, in trails, the dunk, delivers were taken and then dumped in the middle of the river. The problem was less than two miles downriver where the intake for the towns waterworks of storms, and a lot of those in trail, and that filth had collected around those pipes. The people that live near here, which is not that far away were up in arms and we are trying for many years prior to the enactment of the slaughterhouse case to have these Meat Industries centralized and one location, preferably downriver, even on the west bank or the east bank and that was the impetus for the enactment of the slaughterhouse case. So before i hear more about, it and like to tell you more about how to get involved, and i hope you will. You can call us with your comments about this, case well have our lines divided and go to calls. Two zero two 2027488901 if you live in the western half of the u. S. Use the hashtag landmark cases, and i have to twitter feed here. Finally, you can be part of that as well and some of those will make it into our discussion. You heard about the deplorable conditions, how did it come to be that they sought redress for the legislature for the problem. When you pumped water and there be all kinds of stuff floating in it. They really wanted to redress for it. They wanted to redress since the Spanish Colonial period. They had either moved the river, or down below the city. And it happened again and again, but the butchers were kind of a larger group that managed to weasel their way back into the city every time, and they were very tightknit, and kept people out of the business and fought back. The regulations always failed. They were not a very well liked group, but they see people as those who put their health and jeopardy. And what happens is the legislature during reconstruction decides that there strategy to lure people back to the republican parties to they can survive after the removal of federal troops is that they would get back a number of things that new orleans always wanted done, including moving back the slaughterhouse of the city and and will put racial anonymity aside for progress. They really think and they say they did not like the legislator but are actually getting good things done. Of course, is not the way its going to turn out. We are going to next take you to the legislator where this piece of legislation was brought in, and its an interesting because a legislator in the reconstruction south and particularly louisiana. There are racial politics attached to it, lets watch. We are in an area to Louisiana State museum that is for radical reconstruction. We are looking at a ballot box from about 1875, and the box is important, not only because its a unique object, but also because of what it represents. Voting rights in louisiana and reconstruction. After the civil war, and new group of people was able to vote for the first time, African Americans to change the competition of the state legislator. Were looking at some of the African Americans who w