Contemporary American History, 1877-1913Beard, Charles A. (Charles Austin)
History
Contemporary American History, 1877-1913
Beard, Charles A. (Charles Austin)
United States -- History -- 1865-1921
In Justice Miller's long opinion there is no hint of that larger and
more comprehensive purpose entertained by the framers of the Fourteenth
Amendment which was asserted by Mr. Conkling a few years later in his
argument before the Supreme Court. If he was aware that the framers had
in mind not only the protection of the freedmen in their newly won
rights, but also the defense of corporations and business enterprises
generally against state legislation, he gave no indication of the fact.
There is nowhere in his opinion any sign that he saw the broad economic
implications of the Amendment which he was expounding for the first time
in the name of the Court. On the contrary, his language and the opinion
reached in the case show that the judges were either not cognizant of
the new economic and political duty placed upon them, or, in memory of
the states' rights traditions which they had entertained, were unwilling
to apply the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments in such a manner as
narrowly to restrict the legislative power of a commonwealth.
In taking up that clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which provides that
no state shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States, Justice Miller declared
that it was not the purpose of that provision to transfer the security
and protection of all fundamental civil rights from the state
government to the Federal Government. A citizen of the United States as
such, he said, has certain privileges and immunities, and _it was these
and these only_ which the Fourteenth Amendment contemplated. He
enumerated some of them: the right of the citizen to come to the seat of
government, to assert any claim he may have upon that government, to
transact any business he may have with it, to seek its protection, share
its offices, engage in administering its functions, to have free access
to its seaports, subtreasuries, land offices, and courts of justice, to
use the navigable waters of the United States, to assemble peaceably
with his fellow citizens and petition for redress of grievances, and to
enjoy the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus. It was rights of this
character, the learned justice argued, and not all the fundamental
rights of person and property which had been acquired in the evolution
of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, that were placed by the Fourteenth
Amendment under the protection of the Federal Government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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