was declared duly ratified by the requisite number of states in a proclamation issued by the Secretary of State on July 30, 1868. This amendment which has sometimes been called the "Omnibus Amendment," was adopted for the protection of the freed negro and for the settlement of various questions left unsettled after the Civil War. The text of the amendment is as follows: "Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. "Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for the President and the Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. "Section 3. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any States legislature, or as an executive or judicial office of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof, but Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability. "Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for service in suppressing insurrection or rebellion shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debts or obligations incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void. "Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.' SECTION 98. THE SLAUGHTER HOUSE CASES. The fourteenth amendment has given rise to more litigation than all the other amendments to the Constitution combined. About three hundred cases have come before the Supreme Court involving this amendment, nearly all of which have arisen out of the first section. The leading decision on this section is that in the Slaughter House Cases.119 The general effect of this decision was to restrict the application of this section, and to dispose of that interpretation of it which 119 16 Wallace, 36. would have carried it to such extremes as entirely to have changed the previously existing relations between the states and the United States. In this decision it is held that this amendment must be interpreted with relation to the circumstances existing at the time of its adoption and with relation to the probable intention and meaning of those who drafted it and those by whom it was adopted. In this case a law of the State of Louisiana was claimed to violate the fourteenth amendment in three different ways: First: by abridging the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the United States; Second: by denying to the plaintiffs the equal protection of the laws; and Third: by depriving them of their property without due process of law. Each of these objections was taken up and disposed of by the Court. In the discussion of the first objection the Court gives the most thorough treatment of the general subject of citizenship to be found in the reports of the Supreme Court. It was shown that there are in the United States two distinct citizenships, a citizenship of the United States and a citizenship of some particular state. Although these two citizenships generally exist side by side in the same individual they do not lose their identity. Certain rights attach to a party on account of his citizenship of the United States, and certain rights on account of his citizenship of the particular state. The rights guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment were those rights which come from citizenship of the United States, while those rights, if any, which had been infringed by the act of the State of Louisiana were rights arising from citizenship of the State of Louisiana. In relation to the last two objections it was held in substance that the fourteenth amendment must be construed bearing in mind the circumstances under which, and the purposes for which, it was proposed and adopted. It was decided that it would require a very clear case to induce the court to hold that any law was a prohibited one under the clause; "Nor shall any state deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," except a law directed under it against the newly freed African slave. It was also held that a strict and restricted construction should be given to the fourteenth amendment; that this amendment did not change the general relations previously existing between the states and the United States, and that the law of the State of Louisiana was not in violation of the United States Constitution. SECTION 99. OTHER DECISIONS ON THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT. The Slaughter House decision has always remained as the leading case on the fourteenth amendment, although the scope of amendment has been somewhat enlarged by later decisions. and This amendment gives citizenship to the negro prohibits the state from denying to him the privileges thereof. It is a guaranty of protection against oppressive acts of the state governments, but not against the commission of offenses against the negro by individuals.120 It does not limit the subjects over which the police power of a state may be exercised for the protection of its citizens.121 The privilege of voting is not protected by this amendment.122 The prohibition of 120 Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S., 3. 121 Barbier vs. Connolly, 113 U. S., 27; Missouri Pacific Ry. vs. Himes, 115 U. S., 512. 122 Minor vs. Happersett, 21 Wal lace, 162. the sale of intoxicating liquors by a state is not contrary to this amendment;123 nor is a law prohibiting the inter-marriage of blacks and whites.124 The questions as to what constitutes due process of law was passed upon by the Supreme Court in Kennard vs. Louisiana,125 where it was held that; the due course of legal proceedings, according to these rules and forms which have been established for the protection of private rights, is due process of law. Irregularities and mere errors in the proceedings of State courts can only be corrected in those courts. The authority of the United States Supreme Court does not extend beyond an examination of the power of the State courts to proceed at all. A state act is not in violation of the provision in the United States Constitution which prohibits any state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, when ample provision is made for the trial of the case before a court of competent jurisdiction for bringing the party against whom the proceeding is had before the Court, and opportunity given to be heard in his defense; for the deliberation and judgment of the court; and for hearing and judgment there. A statute making an arbitrary classification with respect to the subjects over which it operates, based upon no reason suggested by the difference in their situation or circumstances, disclosing the propriety of such legislation, is void.120 23 Mugler vs. Kansas, 123 U. S., 623; Eilenbecker vs. District Court of Plymouth County, 134 U. S., 31; Kidd vs. Perrson, 126 U. S., 1; Beer vs. Massachusetts, 97 U. S., 25; Bartmeyer vs. Iowa, 18 Wallace, 129, with qualifying dicta in last case. 124 Ex parte Hobbs and Jackson, 1 Woods, 537. 125 92 U. S., 480. 120 Sutherland's Notes on the United States Constitution, N. 733; |