Supreme Court Cases

The Slaughterhouse cases (1873)

The Slaughterhouse cases (1873)

Emphasized the distinct character of federal and state citizenship

Munn v. Illinois/the Granger cases (1877)

States may set rates for grain storage private property dedicated to public use is subject to government regulation

Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railway Company v. Illinois (1886)

Individual states had no power to regulate interstate commerce

United States v. E.C. Knight Company (1888)

Sherman Anti-Trust Act does not apply to a trust that refined over 90% of the sugar sold in the U.S; later eroded by other decisions

Pollock v. Farmers Loan and Trust Company (1895)

Declared the first federal income tax law unconstitutional

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Announced the acceptance of the doctrine “separate but equal”

Insular cases (1901)

Territories gained in the Spanish-American War were no longer to be considered “foreign countries” but neither were they assumed to be part of the U.S; as territories they were ruled by Congress

Northern Securities Company v. U.S. (1904)

A holding company formed for the express purpose of limiting competition is guilty of restraint of trade and in violation of the federal antitrust acts

Lochner v. New York (1905)

Overturned a law limiting the number of hours a company may require a worker to work; said it infringed on the freedom of contracts

Muller v. Oregon (1908)

Upheld an Oregon law limiting the number of hours women could be employed in industry; to safeguard their childbearing abilities

Bunting v. Oregon (1917)

Extended Muller v. Oregon ruling to include all industrial workers (10 hrs a day); overturned Lochner v. New York

Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)

Overturned a law banning products made by child labor from being sold in interstate commerce; reversed in 1941 in U.S. v. Darby Lumber Company

Schenck v. U.S. (1919)

Freedom of speech may be curtailed if exercising that right posed a “clear and present danger” to others or to the state

Schechter Poultry Corporation v. U.S. (1935)

Declared the NIRA unconstitutional

U.S. v. Butler (1936)

Declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional

Smith v. Allwright (1944)

Overruled practices like the “all-white” primary in choosing state and national officials

Korematsu v. U.S. (1944)

Upheld the 1942 removal of Japanese-Americans to relocation centers in inland campus; declared within the combined war powers of Congress

Sweatt v. Painter (1950)

Held that intangible factors may be considered in determining whether professional education programs are comparable under the separate but equal doctrine

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954, 1955)

Overturned the “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson; mandated that segregated facilities be eliminated “with all deliberate speed”

Guinn v. U.S. (1915)

SCOTUS struck down Oklahoma’s “grandfather clause”