Court Opinion

ID: 9416857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 19:57:07.947232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:33.395080
License: Public Domain

The CHIEF JUSTICE
dissented in this case and in the preceding one of White v. Hart, on the grounds:
1st. That contracts for the purchase and sale of slaves were and are against sound morals and natural justice, and without support except in positive law.
2d. That the laws of the several States b}- which alone slavery and slave contracts could be supported, were annulled by the thirteenth amendment of the Constitution which abolished slavery.
*6643d. That thenceforward the common law of all the States was restored to its original principles of liberty, justice, and right, in conformity with which some of the highest courts of the late Slave States, notably that of Louisiana, have decided, and all might, on the same principles, decide, slave contracts to be invalid, as inconsistent with their jurisprudence, and this court has properly refused to interfere with those decisions.
4th. That the clause in the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution which forbids compensation for slaves emancipated by'the thirteenth, can be vindicated only on these principles.
5th. That clauses in State constitutions, acts of State legislatures, and decisions of State courts, warranted by the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments, cannot be held void as in violation of the original Constitution, which forbids the States to pass any law violating the obligation of contracts.