Supreme Court holds 8-1 that 14th Amendment had nothing to do with protecting freed slaves
Today, the US Supreme Court held, in an 8-1 decision, that the construction, wording, and passage of the 14th Amendment had nothing to do with protecting freed slaves from legal and extra-legal oppression by reactionary whites in the post bellum South. In particular, the eight majority Justices shrugged off any notion that the phrase, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" has, or was intended to have, any referent contained in the Bill of Rights.
The only Justice supporting the argument that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" was intended as a bullwark against states curtailing rights that even the federal government could not abridge, is the sole member of the Court descended from the very freed African-American slaves such a principle would have been intended to protect.
The only Justice supporting the argument that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" was intended as a bullwark against states curtailing rights that even the federal government could not abridge, is the sole member of the Court descended from the very freed African-American slaves such a principle would have been intended to protect.