Supreme Court Cases

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”