Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1873-04-24
State Rights.

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ington, the most widely important is
that which finds its basis in SO narrow
a subject as jealousy among the
butchers of New Orleans. Nine years
ago the Legislature of Louisiana in
corporated the Crescent City Live
Stock Landing and Slaughter-Honse
Company, in whose hands it placed
the exclusive privilege of erecting
abattoirs and providing stock-yards
for general use. The charges of the
Company were limited by law, and a
heavy penalty was affixed to a refusal
of the use of the premises to any pro-
per party. The butchers whose es-
Establishments were thus closed by law
have been for three years engaged in
litigation for the purpose of removing
the restriction, the case at length com
ing before the United States Supreme
Court, in error, ON the question of
constitutionalty. The plaintiffs base
one portion Of their plea on the alleg-
ed illegality of q monopoly that de-
prives large and meritorious class Of
citizens of the right to earn liveli-
hood in the exercise of their trade,
which they deny the power of the
Legislature to create This is dispos
ed Of by the Court by the decision
that the exclusive privilege granted is
within the lawful scope Of legislation,
as regulating IN industry over which
supervision is necessary for sanitary
reasons, and as coming under the con-
coded authority of the Legislatures Of
all States. The protesting butchers,
however have given the subject a more
extended Importance by appealing for
from hostile legislation at
home to the authority Of the Federal
Government under the Thirteenth aud
Fourteenth Amendments.
These Amendments, after giving
to so much that is new
aud strange in public policy, are how
cited by the New Orleans butchers as
the abattoir monopoly, on
the ground that the Objectionable char
ter creates an " involuntary servitude,
abridges the "privileges and immuni-
ties Of citizens" denies the equal
protection Of the laws, and deprives
them Of their property "without due
process of law" AS this is the first
when the Supreme Court has
been called upon to give construction
to the articles of amendment, the opin-
ion possesses an unusual interest, in
measure defining the relations of the
States and the Federal Government as
affected by the late changes in the
Constitution. After declaring the
of State Legislatures to es-
tablish monopolies under the restric-
tons of their own fundamental laws,
the Court proceeds to an elaborate ex-
position of the general purposes of the
Amendments. The ''involuntary ser
vitude," mentioned in the Thirteeth
Amendment, is construed to refer only
TO restriction of personal freedom,
whether by legalized slavery or ap-
premiership in long terms. The
Fourteenth Amendment was also di |
rected against the institution of slav-
cry, supplementing the former by
forbidding the curtailment of the right
Of citizens, and especially of the freed
men, to life, liberty and property.
This unity of purpose in the two
Amendments referred to is further
confirmed by the wording of the Eff
tenth Amendment, which, with the
others, completes the citizenship of
the blacks and guards them from i'm
position at the hands of any possibly
hostile legislation by individual States.
Farther than this the Court refuses to
go; and although acknowledging the
right of any citizen to claim the pro-
lection of the Federal Government
when his liberties are infi'inged in the
manner designated, it declines to wrest
from the Amendments authority for
with the States where the
spirit and letter of the articles are not
evidently favorable.
Of equal Importance is the distinc-
ton made by the Court between the
rights of q citizen of the United States
and those of citizen of a State. The
first section of the Fourteenth Amend
ment contains the only definition of
to he found in tho COnsti-