Edit filter log

'{{Infobox SCOTUS case | Litigants = United States v. Cruikshank | ArgueDateA = March 30 | ArgueDateB = April 1 | ArgueYear = 1875 | DecideDate = March 27 | DecideYear = 1876 | FullName = United States v. Cruikshank, et al. | USVol = 92 | USPage = 542 | Citation = 2. Otto 542; 23 L.Ed. 588 | Prior = | Subsequent = | Holding = The First Amendment right to assembly was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens and the Second Amendment has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government. | SCOTUS = 1874-1877 | Majority = Waite | JoinMajority = Swayne, Miller, Field, Strong | Concurrence = | JoinConcurrence = | Concurrence2 = | JoinConcurrence2 = | Concurrence/Dissent = Clifford | JoinConcurrence/Dissent = Davis, Bradley, Hunt | Dissent = | JoinDissent = | Dissent2 = | JoinDissent2 = | LawsApplied = }} '''''United States v. Cruikshank''''', [[Case citation|92 U.S. 542]] (1875)<ref>{{ussc|92|542|Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com}}</ref> was an important [[Supreme Court of the United States|United States Supreme Court]] decision in [[United States constitutional law]], one of the earliest to deal with the application of the [[United States Bill of Rights|Bill of Rights]] to [[State governments of the United States|state governments]] following the adoption of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]]. The case arose during the poop[[Reconstruction Era]] from the 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election which was hotly disputed, and led to both major political parties certifying their slates of local officers. At Colfax, Louisiana, tensions climaxed in the [[Colfax massacre]], in which 105 black people and 3 white people were killed. A federal judge ruled that the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]-majority legislature be seated, but the Democrats did not accept this. Growing social tensions erupted on April 13, 1873, when an armed militia of white [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] attacked black Republican [[Freedman|freedmen]], who had gathered at the [[Grant Parish, Louisiana|Grant Parish]] Courthouse in [[Colfax, Louisiana]], to resist an attempt of Democratic takeover of the offices.<ref name=PBS>[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/grant/peopleevents/e_colfax.html ''Ulysses S. Grant'', People and Events: "The Colfax Massacre", PBS Website], accessed August 18, 2013.</ref> Federal charges were brought against several members of the white insurgents under the [[Enforcement Act of 1870]], which prohibited two or more people from conspiring to deprive anyone of their constitutional rights. Convictions were appealed to the Supreme Court. Among these charges including hindering the freedmen's [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] right to [[Freedom of assembly|freely assemble]] and their [[Second Amendment to the United States Constitution|Second Amendment]] right to [[Right to keep and bear arms in the United States|keep and bear arms]]. In its ruling, the Supreme Court overturned the convictions of the white men, holding that the [[Due Process Clause]] and the [[Equal Protection Clause]] of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] applies only to [[State actor|state action]], not to actions by individual citizens. It said that the plaintiffs had to rely on state courts for protection, although at the time and for decades after these courts never convicted white men for murder of blacks.<ref name="Waite554">''Cruikshank'', 92 U.S. 542 at 554</ref> The Justices stated "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government."<ref name="Waite553">''Cruikshank'', 92 U.S. 542 at 553</ref> Federal troops were withdrawn from the South in 1877, and elections afterward were often fraught with fraud and violence as white Democrats struggled to suppress black Republican voting. From 1890 to 1908, the southern states passed new constitutions or amendments that resulted in [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disfranchisement]] of most black people and many poor whites, to prevent the type of Populist coalition that had gained temporary power in the 1880s. This status of political exclusion lasted until after passage of federal civil rights legislation in the 1960s. ==Background== {{main|Colfax massacre}} On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, an armed white militia attacked African-American Republican freedmen, who had gathered at the [[Grant Parish, Louisiana|Grant Parish]] courthouse in [[Colfax, Louisiana]] to protect it from the pending Democratic takeover. Although some of the black people were armed and initially defended themselves, estimates were that 100–280 were killed, most of them following surrender, including 50 being held prisoner that night. Three white people were killed. This was in the tense aftermath of months of uncertainty following the disputed gubernatorial election of November 1872, when two parties declared victory at the state and local levels. The election was still unsettled in the spring, and both [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] and [[Fusion Party|Fusionists]], who carried [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] backing, had certified their own slates for the local offices of [[sheriff]] ([[Christopher Columbus Nash]]) and [[justice of the peace]] in [[Grant Parish, Louisiana|Grant Parish]], where Colfax is the parish seat. Federal troops reinforced the election of the Republican governor, [[William Pitt Kellogg]]. Some members of the white mob were indicted and charged under 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 in preventing black people from voting and murdering them. Among other provisions, the law made it a felony for two or more people to conspire to deprive anyone of his constitutional rights.<ref>{{cite book | title=The Colfax Massacre | author=Keith, Leanna | year=2008}}</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 Supreme Court ruled on March 27, 1876, on a range of issues and found the indictment faulty. It overturned 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: <blockquote>There is in our political system a government of each of the several States, and a Government of the United States. Each is distinct from the others, and has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect. The same person may be at the same time a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a State, but his rights of citizenship under one of those governments will be different from those he has under the other.<ref name="Waite549">''Cruikshank'', 92 U.S. 542 at 549</ref></blockquote> The ruling also stated 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: <blockquote>The Government of the United States, although it is, within the scope of its powers, supreme and beyond the States, can neither grant nor secure to its citizens rights or privileges which are not expressly or by implication placed under its jurisdiction. All that cannot be so granted or secured are left to the exclusive protection of the States.<ref name="Waite551">''Cruikshank'', 92 U.S. 542 at 551</ref></blockquote> The Court then 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. <blockquote>The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in ''The City of New York v. Miln'', 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States.<ref name="Waite553"/></blockquote> The Court also ruled that the [[Due process#Due process in the United States|Due Process]] and [[Equal Protection Clause|Equal Protection]] Clauses applied only to [[State actor|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"/> ===Dissenting/Concurring opinion=== Justice Clifford also agreed with the other Justices to rescind the indictments but for entirely different reasons: he opined that section five of the 14th Amendment invested 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 or the courts worked to protect freedmen.<ref>{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties|author=Finkelman, Paul|year=2006}}</ref> As [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] regained power in the late 1870s, they struggled to suppress black voting through intimidation and fraud at the polls. [[Paramilitary]] groups such as the [[Red Shirts (Southern United States)|Red Shirts]] acted on behalf of the Democrats to suppress black voting. From 1890 to 1908, 10 of the 11 former [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] states passed [[Disfranchisement after the Civil War|disfranchising]] constitutions or amendments,<ref>{{cite book|title=Democracy's Privileged Few|author=Chafetz, Joshua Aaron|year=2007}}</ref> with provisions for [[poll tax (United States)|poll taxes]],<ref name="Klarman, Michael J. 2004">{{cite book|title=From Jim Crow to Civil Rights|author=Klarman, Michael J.|year=2004}}</ref> residency requirements, [[literacy test]]s,<ref name="Klarman, Michael J. 2004"/> and [[grandfather clause]]s 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 also 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 turned a blind eye on the violence. They 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." Federal civil rights enforcement was blocked by ''Cruikshank'' until 1966 (''[[United States v. Price]]''; ''[[United States v. Guest]]'') when the Court vitiated ''Cruikshank''.<ref>Leonard W. Levy, et al., eds., ''Encyclopedia of the American Constitution'', MacMillan/Professional Books, 1987.</ref>{{page needed|date=December 2012}} All five [[List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States|Justices]] in 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 over a century by supporters of restrictive state and local [[gun control]] laws such as the [[Sullivan Act]]. Although significant portions of ''Cruikshank'' have been overturned (either explicitly or by implication) by later decisions, most notably the 5–4 ''[[District of Columbia v. Heller]]'' ruling in 2008, 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 murky ''[[United States v. Miller]]'' in 1939, but both preceded the court's general acceptance of the [[incorporation of the Bill of Rights|incorporation doctrine]] and have been questioned for that reason. The majority opinion of the Supreme Court in ''Heller'' suggested that ''Cruikshank'' and the chain of cases flowing from it would no longer be considered good law as a result of the radically changed view of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] when that issue eventually comes before the courts: <blockquote>With respect to ''Cruikshank's'' continuing validity on incorporation, a question not presented by this case, we note that ''Cruikshank'' also said that the First Amendment did not apply against the States and did not engage in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases. Our later decisions in ''Presser v. Illinois'', 116 U. S. 252, 265 (1886) and ''Miller v. Texas'', 153 U. S. 535, 538 (1894), reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government.</blockquote> This issue did come before the Supreme Court in ''[[McDonald v. Chicago]]'', 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">{{cite book|last=Rabban|first=David M.|title=Free Speech in Its Forgotten Years, 1870–1920|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QvTt3xWQBEYC&pg=PA148|accessdate=29 April 2014|date=1999-11-13|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521655378|page=148}}</ref> The ''[[Civil Rights Cases]]'' and Justice [[William Rehnquist|Rehnquist]]'s opinion for the majority in ''[[United States v. Morrison]]'' referred to the ''Cruikshank'' state action doctrine. ==See also== * [[List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 92]] * [[Jim Crow laws]] ==References== {{Reflist}} ==Further reading== * {{cite journal|last= Pope |first=James Gray | title = Snubbed landmark: Why ''United States v. Cruikshank'' (1876) belongs at the heart of the American constitutional canon | journal = [[Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review]] | volume = 49 | issue = 2 | pages = 385–447 | publisher = [[Harvard Law School]] | date = Spring 2014 | url = http://harvardcrcl.org/archive/ | ref = harv | postscript = .}} [http://harvardcrcl.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/385_Pope.pdf Pdf.] * {{cite journal | last = Greene | first = Jamal | title = Thirteenth Amendment optimism | journal = [[Columbia Law Review]] | volume = 112 | issue = 7 | pages = 1733–1768 | publisher = [[Columbia Law School]] | jstor = 41708163 | date = November 2012 | url = http://columbialawreview.org/thirteenth-amendment-optimism/ | ref = harv | postscript = .}} [http://columbialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/1733-1768.pdf Pdf.] * C. Peter Margrath, ''Morrison R. Waite'', MacMillan, 1963. ==External links== *{{wikisource-inline|United States v. Cruikshank|''United States v. Cruikshank''}} *{{caselaw source |case=''United States v. Cruikshank'', 92 U.S. 542 (1876) |findlaw=http://laws.findlaw.com/us/92/542.html |justia=http://www.justia.us/us/92/542/case.html }} {{DEFAULTSORT:United States V. Cruikshank}} [[Category:1875 in United States case law]] [[Category:African-American history between emancipation and the civil rights movement]] [[Category:United States Supreme Court cases]] [[Category:United States First Amendment case law]] [[Category:United States Second Amendment case law]] [[Category:United States Fourteenth Amendment case law]] [[Category:United States Fifteenth Amendment case law]] [[Category:Criminal cases in the Waite Court]] [[Category:United States Supreme Court cases of the Waite Court]]'