During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Supreme Court significantly impacted emancipation and civil rights through a number of its decisions that fundamentally restricted the rights of newly freed African Americans and limited their integration into society. At the time, almost four million former slaves were looking for economic, political, and social equality, but their desire to enjoy full citizenship under the Constitution was quickly subjugated by America’s white population. These Supreme Court decisions set forth harmful legal precedents that hindered the “new birth of liberty” for decades and although the Supreme Court later helped develop the rights of African American by steadily guaranteeing them equal protections under the law, their initial hesitation towards progression during the Reconstruction era was detrimental to freedmen. After the Supreme Court ruled in some of these decisions, Southern states redrafted their Constitutions to prevent newly freed slaves from voting and integrating with whites in public, and most of these states allowed for segregation, discrimination, and violence against African Americans. Despite a wave of federal legislation to support desegregation and civil rights later on, including the abolition of slavery and the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Supreme Court’s earlier decisions in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Ex parte Merryman, Hepburn v. Griswold, Bradwell v. Illinois, Minor v. Happersett, U.S. v. Cruikshank, the Slaughterhouse Cases, and the Civil Rights Cases obstructed freedman’s civil, political, and social rights and contributed to inherent inequality in the United States.
Emancipation changed the stakes of the Civil War, ensuring that a Union victory would mean large-scale social revolution in the South. The Republican party sought to grant civil rights to former slaves and they managed to do so through constitutional amendments that abolished slavery, granted African Americans citizenship and equal protection under the law, and allowed former male slaves to vote. However, the Supreme Court’s decisions in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, Dred Scott v. Sanford, Ex parte Merryman, and Hepburn v. Griswold redefined the Fourteenth Amendment and other constitutional liberties very narrowly, distinguishing the relevancy of their applications between different parties and under different legal circumstances. In Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court’s decision held that Pennsylvania law violated Article IV, Section 2 and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. This placed an obstacle in front of fugitive slaves seeking asylum across state lines and although the case did not require states to recapture fugitive slaves, it did give the federal government the authority to do so, hindering the abolitionist movement’s progression towards emancipation for slaves. Similarly, in Dred Scott v. Sanford, the Court ruled against Dred Scott, saying that under the Constitution, he was his master’s property, setting back the clock decades for the abolitionist movement. Under the same decision, the Court also ruled that the Missouri Compromise of 1821— under which Missouri was admitted to the union as a slave state, Maine as a free state to balance the number of free and slave states— was unconstitutional because it violated slave owners’ rights to their property. This threatened to disturb the delicate balance between free and slave states in the Union, but also declared that African Americans were not federal citizens, therefore, they did not have the right to sue in court. Likewise, the Supreme Court’s decision to challenge Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in Ex parte Merryman did not take into account the fact this case should be considered an exception because during wartime, the general public’s safety should be prioritized over certain constitutional liberties. The Justices’ priorities during the war were also brought to light in Hepburn v. Griswold, which declared that the Legal Tender Cases which affirmed the constitutionality of paper money were indeed unconstitutional. The Court’s justification of the unconstitutionality of using greenbacks was solely based on the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the Justices held that creditors did not have to accept paper money even though the government was threatened by war. This reaffirmed the Judiciary’s different priorities distinguishing economic rights and civil liberties, even in the context of war.
Politically, the Supreme Court granted citizens liberties in Ex parte Milligan, Ex parte McCardle, and the Prize Cases, but they also set forth the precedent that the Fourteenth Amendment did not protect a broader range of rights for African Americans in individual states. Although the Court held that civilians cannot be tried by military tribunals in Ex parte Milligan, they did not explicitly mention if the same would apply to former black slaves in cases that are beyond the context of the Civil War. Similarly, the Court validated congressional withdrawal of the Court’s jurisdiction in Ex parte McCardle, justifying the Reconstruction Acts, but Justice Chase that this did not mean jurisdiction which was previously exercised could also be repealed. The Supreme Court also gave the President the authority to blockade southern ports, upholding his power as Commander and Chief during wartime in the Prize Cases during the earlier period of the Civil War which significantly furthered the war cause, but their decision in Minor v. Happersett later minimized the extent of the liberties which were originally fought for during the war. The Court held that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee anyone, especially a female voter from Missouri, the right to vote because the right to vote is not a constitutionally protected privilege under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As one of the the first cases to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment shortly after its passing, the Supreme Court’s narrow interpretation of the Privileges and Immunities Clause held that it only applied to a very limited number of federal rights of citizenship. Thus, the Fourteenth Amendment did not protect the much broader range of rights granted by individual states. This decision exacerbated the regional tensions between the North and South and allowed state and local laws to institute racial segregations by disenfranchising black voters through a combination of poll taxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and residency requirements. Voter turnout among former slaves dropped significantly because of these measures, and thus, presidential elections were also deeply slanted against black voters. Eventually, white southerners faced problems in labor markets after the end of slavery, and so, racism in the South deepened and defenses for Jim Crow Laws gained popularity. White supremacy also threatened African Americans who were trying to exercise their new liberties and the public segregation of facilities established social dominance over blacks, creating a racial caste system in the South. Thus, the Supreme Court’s decisions in these cases not only hindered political liberties for freed slaves, but they also heightened inequality in the public arena.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court also used their decisions in U.S. v. Cruikshank, the Civil Rights Cases, the Slaughterhouse Cases, and Bradwell v. Illinois to differentiate between civil rights and social liberties, limiting the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment’s application in constitutional law. In United States v. Cruikshank, the Court addressed backlash violence against African Americans in the United States: the courts chose not to protect them and instead limited Reconstruction. By arguing that the prosecutors did not explicitly write “racial motive,” Chief Justice Waite held that there was no constitutional basis for prosecuting the individuals of the white mob under the 15th Amendment because they were “private citizens.” The Cruikshank decision essentially voided the 14th Amendment when individuals perpetrated racial crimes and ruled that the 14th Amendment can only be used to justify a case where the federal government infringes on individual liberties. This led to a strong negative impact because of the federal government’s refusal to intervene in “private” racial inequality cases. Moreover, although the Civil Rights Act of 1875 affirmed equality for all in public places, the Supreme Court’s distinction between state and private action in The Civil Rights Cases held that the Fourteenth Amendment does not allow the federal government to prohibit discriminatory behavior if it is between private parties. Through this decision, which ruled that parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were unconstitutional, the Court advocated for a broader interpretation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments only if private places served public functions as well, limiting its use in hate crimes against African Americans. The Supreme Court made landmark decisions that affected economic liberties as well, making sure to note that economic liberties do not fall under the civil liberties the federal government protects for its citizens. The Slaughter-House Cases held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not guarantee that all citizens had the same economic privileges because any rights granted by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment must be provided by the federal government. Thus, economic liberties are privileges that cannot be guaranteed by states and the Court decided not to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment outside its original Civil War context. Similarly, in Bradwell v. Illinois, Myra Bradwell’s right to practice law was denied because the Constitution does not guarantee that economic liberties are among the privileges and immunities citizens are guaranteed by the federal government. Justice Miller argued this right was depended on citizenship, while Justice Bradley went on to say that women should be excluded from the legal profession because of their duties to motherhood and their husbands, in accordance to the “laws of the Creator.” Thus, through these decisions, the Supreme Court enacted legislation that limited economic liberties for freedmen and they subjugated African Americans’ citizenships by limiting the extent by which they were protected under the law.
In conclusion, while the Supreme Court granted African Americans new liberties under the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments that drastically helped “the birth of new liberty,” the Court’s decisions also set forth harmful legal precedents that countered congressional Reconstruction. The Court’s hesitation to support civil rights, desegregation, and integration was damaging during Reconstruction and it exacerbated tensions between the North and South, allowing Southern states to implement Jim Crow Laws and disenfranchise black voters. Despite the reversal of many of these decisions, the Supreme Court’s rulings in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Ex parte Merryman, Hepburn v. Griswold, Bradwell v. Illinois, Minor v. Happersett, U.S. v. Cruikshank, the Slaughterhouse Cases, and the Civil Rights Cases obstructed freedman’s civil, political, and social rights, contributed to inherent inequality, and were a largely negative hindrance to the development of African American civil rights.