Civil Rights Cases

The Civil Rights Cases were a series of important U.S. Supreme Court Cases decided in 1883. Here, the Supreme Court declared most of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, a "last gasp" of the radical Republicans of the Reconstruction era, unconstitutional. In particular, the Court ruled that the 14th Amendment prohibited only government violations of civil rights, not the denial of civil rights by individuals unaided by the state. The attempt by Congress to legislate these private acts exceeded its power of enforcement under the Fourteenth Amendment. These cases essentially put a formal end to any attempts by Republicans to ensure the civil rights of blacks, and ushered in the mass denial of civil rights to blacks until the 1960s. The decision that the Reconstruction-era Civil Rights Acts were unconstitutional has not been overturned. Instead, more recent civil rights laws have been upheld based on the Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause in Article I. Category:U.S. civil rights historyCategory:United States legal historyCategory:U.S. Supreme Court cases