In a pivotal decision on April 14, 1873, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Slaughterhouse Cases that the Fourteenth Amendment only protected federal—not state—civil rights. This narrow interpretation began the systematic weakening of the Fourteenth Amendment’s power to protect formerly enslaved people and Black citizens from state-level discrimination. The ruling limited federal intervention in civil rights abuses by the states, undermining key protections envisioned during Reconstruction.
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