Only the last of these restrictions was placed upon all the states by the original constitution. The rest are contained substantially in the constitution of every state, and until after the Civil War the rights which they protected were considered secure enough without the guarantee of the national government. In the Fourteenth Amendment, however, three clauses were inserted, with a purpose to guard against any invasion of the fundamental civil rights by the states.
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge 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 law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
To what extent, then, do these clauses give the federal courts a corrective jurisdiction over state legislation and procedure? Do they afford a constitutional foundation for the power assumed by Congress in laying upon the states the restrictions under consideration?
It was held at first by many lawyers that the phrase "privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States" would include all the ordinary ingredients of civil liberty. This was denied by the Supreme Court in the Slaughter House Cases, and it was there decided that the fundamental civil rights were still, as before, primarily under the care of the states. [1] A limitation is put upon
- ↑ 16 Wallace, 77.
