Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-303_6khn.pdf
Page Number: 19.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

11 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

Cases, 16 Wall. 36 (1873), Justice Bradley’s dissent articu-
lated  the  equal-citizenship  principle:  “Citizenship  of  the 
United States ought to be, and, according to the Constitu-
tion, is, a sure and undoubted title to equal rights in any 
and every State in this Union.”  Id., at 113.  “If a man be 
denied full equality before the law, he is denied one of the 
essential  rights  of  citizenship  as  a  citizen  of  the  United
States.”  Ibid.; see also id., at 118 (“Equality before the law 
is  undoubtedly  one  of  privileges  and  immunities  of  every 
citizen”).  Justice  Field’s  dissent  similarly  explained  that 
the  1866  Act  rested  “upon  the  theory  that  citizens  of  the 
United States as such were entitled to the rights and privi-
leges  enumerated,  and  that  to  deny  to  any  such  citizen 
equality in these rights and privileges with others, was, to
the extent of the denial, subjecting him to an involuntary
servitude,” i.e., rejecting his status as a citizen.  Id., at 91– 
92. 

Three  years  after  the  Slaughter-House  Cases,  Congress
enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1875, prohibiting discrimi-
nation in public accommodations.  During the congressional 
debates over the 1875 Act, Republicans reiterated the rela-
tionship between the status of “citizen” and entitlement to 
equal civil rights.  See Williams 565–570; see also C. Green, 
Equal Citizenship, Civil Rights, and the Constitution 164–
202 (2015) (collecting examples).  In a virtually unanimous
opinion, this Court held the 1875 Act unconstitutional be-
cause  discrimination  by  public  accommodations  was  not
state action Congress could regulate under the Fourteenth
Amendment.  See  Civil  Rights  Cases,  109  U. S.  3,  25–26 
(1883).  The lone dissenter, Justice John Marshall Harlan, 
focused  primarily  on  citizenship  and  echoed  Republicans’ 
understanding  of  equal  citizenship:  “Citizenship  in  this
country necessarily imports at least equality of civil rights 
among citizens of every race in the same State.  It is funda-
mental  in  American  citizenship  that,  in  respect  of  such
rights,  there  shall  be  no  discrimination  by  the  State . . .