The opinion of the court was rendered by Mr. Justice Miller. The Justice opened by making a few remarks upon the "police power," in the course of which he said that the regulation of slaughtering fell within the borders of that mysterious domain and without doubt constituted one of the powers enjoyed by all states previous to the adoption of the Civil War amendments. After commenting upon the great responsibility devolved upon the Court in construing the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments and remarking on the careful deliberation with which the judges had arrived at their conclusions, Justice Miller then turned to an examination of the historical purpose which underlay the adoption of the amendments in question. After his recapitulation of recent events, he concluded: "On the most casual examination of the language of these amendments, no one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in them all, lying at the foundation of each, and without which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the oppression of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him. It is true that only the Fifteenth Amendment, in terms, mentions the negro by speaking of his color and his slavery. But it is just as true that each of the other articles was addressed to the grievances of that race and designed to remedy them as the Fifteenth. We do not say that no one else but the negro can share in this protection. Both the language and spirit of these articles are to have their fair and just weight in any question of construction.... What we do wish to say and what we wish to be understood as saying is, that in any fair and just construction of any section or phrase of these amendments, it is necessary to look to the purpose, which as we have said was the pervading spirit of them all, the evil which they were designed to remedy, and the process of continued addition to the Constitution until that purpose was supposed to be accomplished as far as constitutional law can accomplish it." Justice Miller dismissed with a tone of impatience the idea of the counsel for the plaintiffs in error that the Louisiana statute in question imposed an "involuntary servitude" forbidden by the Thirteenth Amendment. "To withdraw the mind," he said, "from the contemplation of this grand yet simple declaration of the personal freedom of all the human race within the jurisdiction of this government--a declaration designed to establish the freedom of four million slaves--and with a microscopic search endeavor to find it in reference to servitudes which may have been attached to property in certain localities, requires an effort, to say the least of it."