United States v. Cruikshank

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> ruling that the U.S. Bill of Rights did not limit the power of private actors or state governments despite the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. It reversed the federal criminal convictions for the civil rights violations committed in aid of anti-Reconstruction murders. Decided during the Reconstruction Era, the case represented a major defeat for federal efforts to protect the civil rights of African Americans.

The case developed from the strongly contested 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election and the subsequent Colfax massacre, in which dozens of black people and three white people were killed. Federal charges were brought against several whites using the Enforcement Act of 1870, which prohibited two or more people from conspiring to deprive anyone of his constitutional rights. Charges included hindering the freedmen's First Amendment right to freely assemble and their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice Morrison Waite reversed the convictions of the defendants, judging that the plaintiffs had to rely on Louisiana state courts for protection. Waite ruled that neither the First Amendment nor the Second Amendment limited the powers of state governments or individuals. He further ruled that the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limited the lawful actions of state governments, but not of individuals. The decision left African Americans in the South at the mercy of increasingly hostile state governments dominated by white Democratic legislatures, and allowed groups such as the Ku Klux Klan to continue to use paramilitary force to suppress black voting.

Cruikshank was the first case to come before the Supreme Court that involved a possible violation of the Second Amendment.<ref name="regent">Template:Cite journal</ref> Decades after Cruikshank, the Supreme Court began incorporating the Bill of Rights to apply to state governments. The Court incorporated the First Amendment's freedom of assembly in De Jonge v. Oregon (1937), while the Second Amendment was incorporated in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010).

Background

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} On Sunday, April 13, 1873, an armed white militia overpowered Black freedmen and state militia occupying the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana after the contested 1872 election for governor of Louisiana and local offices. The election results were still undetermined at the beginning of spring, and both Republican and Fusionists had certified their own candidates for the local offices of sheriff and justice of the peace. Federal troops reinforced the election of the Republican governor, William Pitt Kellogg.

At the massacre, most of the freedmen were killed after surrendering, and nearly another 50 were killed later that night after being held as prisoners for several hours. Estimates of the number of dead have varied over the years, ranging from 62 to 153; three whites died but the number of Black victims was difficult to determine because many bodies were thrown into the Red River or removed for burial, possibly at mass graves.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Some members of the white gangs were indicted and charged by the Enforcement Act of 1870. The Act had been designed primarily to allow Federal enforcement and prosecution of actions of the Ku Klux Klan and other secret vigilante groups against blacks, both for violence and murder and for preventing them from voting. Among other provisions, the law made it a felony for two or more people to conspire to deprive anyone of his constitutional rights.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The white defendants were charged with sixteen counts, divided into two sets of eight each. Among the charges included violating the freedmen's rights to lawfully assemble, to vote, and to bear arms.<ref name="Waite544-546">Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 at 544-546</ref>

Opinion of the Court

Majority opinion

The Waite Court in 1876

The Supreme Court ruled on March 27, 1876, on a range of issues and found the indictment faulty. It reversed the convictions of the white defendants in the case. Chief Justice Morrison Waite authored the majority opinion.

In its ruling, the Court did not incorporate the Bill of Rights to the states. The Court opined about the dualistic nature of the U.S. political system:

The ruling said that all U.S. citizens are subject to two governments, their state government and the other the national government, and then defined the scope of each:

The Court found that the First Amendment right to assembly "was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens, but to operate upon the National Government alone," thus "for their protection in its enjoyment ... the people must look to the States. The power for that purpose was originally placed there, and it has never been surrendered to the United States".<ref name="Waite551"/>

In addition the Justices held that the Second Amendment restricts only the powers of the national government, and that it does not restrict private citizens from denying other citizens the right to keep and bear arms, or any other right in the Bill of Rights. The Justices held that the right of the people to keep and bear arms exists, and that it is a right that exists without the Constitution granting such a right, by stating "Neither is it [the right to keep and bear arms] in any manner dependent upon that instrument [the Constitution] for its existence." Their ruling was that citizens must look to "municipal legislation" when other citizens deprive them of such rights rather than the Constitution.

The Court also ruled that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses applied only to state action, and not to actions of individuals: "The fourteenth amendment prohibits a State from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; but this adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as against another."<ref name="Waite554">Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 at 554</ref>

Dissenting opinion

Justice Clifford agreed with the other Justices to rescind the indictments but for entirely different reasons: he opined that section five of the 14th Amendment vested the federal government with the power to legislate the actions of individuals who restrict the constitutional rights of others, but he found that the indictments were worded too vaguely to allow the defendants to prepare an effective defense.

Aftermath

African Americans in the South were left to the mercy of increasingly hostile state governments dominated by white Democratic legislatures; neither the legislatures, law enforcement, nor the courts worked to protect freedmen.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As white Democrats regained power in the late 1870s, they struggled to suppress black Republican voting through intimidation and fraud at the polls. Paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts acted on behalf of the Democrats to suppress black voting. In addition, from 1890 to 1908, 10 of the 11 former Confederate states passed disfranchising constitutions or amendments,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> with provisions for poll taxes,<ref name="Klarman, Michael J. 2004">Template:Cite book</ref> residency requirements, literacy tests,<ref name="Klarman, Michael J. 2004"/> and grandfather clauses that effectively disfranchised most black voters and many poor white people. The disfranchisement also meant that black people could not serve on juries or hold any political office, which were restricted to voters; those who could not vote were excluded from the political system.

The Cruikshank ruling allowed groups such as the Ku Klux Klan to flourish and continue to use paramilitary force to suppress black voting. As white Democrats dominated the Southern legislatures, they ignored the violence and refused to allow African Americans any right to bear arms.

As constitutional commentator Leonard Levy later wrote in 1987, "Cruikshank paralyzed the federal government's attempt to protect black citizens by punishing violators of their Civil Rights and, in effect, shaped the Constitution to the advantage of the Ku Klux Klan". In 1966, (United States v. Price; United States v. Guest) the Court vitiated Cruikshank.<ref>Leonard W. Levy, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, MacMillan/Professional Books, 1987.</ref>Template:Page needed

All five Justices of the majority had been appointed by Republicans (three by Lincoln, two by Grant). The lone Democratic appointee Nathan Clifford dissented.

Continuing validity

Cruikshank has been cited for more than a century by supporters of restrictive state and local gun control laws such as the Sullivan Act.

Although significant portions of Cruikshank have been reversed by later decisions, most notably the 5–4 McDonald v. City of Chicago ruling in 2010, it is still relied upon with some authority in other portions. Cruikshank and Presser v. Illinois, which reaffirmed it in 1886, are the only significant Supreme Court interpretations of the Second Amendment until the ambiguous United States v. Miller in 1939. Both preceded the court's general acceptance of the incorporation doctrine and have been questioned for that reason.Template:Citation needed

The majority opinion of the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller suggested that Cruikshank and the cases flowing from it would no longer be considered good law as a result of the radically changed opinion of the Fourteenth Amendment when that issue eventually comes before the courts:

This issue did come before the Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago (2010), in which the Supreme Court "reversed the Seventh Circuit, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense applicable to the states."

Regarding this assertion in Heller that Cruikshank said the first amendment did not apply against the states, Professor David Rabban wrote Cruikshank "never specified whether the First Amendment contains 'fundamental rights' protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against state action".<ref name="Rabban1999">Template:Cite book</ref>

The Civil Rights Cases (1883) and Justice Rehnquist's opinion for the majority in United States v. Morrison (2000) referred to the Cruikshank state action doctrine.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 92
• Jim Crow laws

Further reading

• Template:Cite journal Pdf. Template:Webarchive
• Template:Cite journal Pdf.
• C. Peter Margrath, Morrison R. Waite, MacMillan, 1963.

External links

• Template:Wikisource-inline
• Template:Caselaw source