Minor v. Happersett (1875): In a unanimous decision written by Chief Justice Waite, the court held that the Constitution did not grant women the right to vote. The ruling was effectively overturned by the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
Pennoyer v. Neff (1878): In a decision written by Justice Field, the court held that a state can exert personal jurisdiction over a defendant if the defendant is served notice while physically present in a state.
Strauder v. West Virginia (1880): In a 7–2 decision delivered by Justice Strong, the court held that the Equal Protection Clause bans exclusionary policies that lead to all-white juries. The decision overturned the conviction of Taylor Strauder, an African-American convicted of murder in West Virginia by an all-white jury. Strauder was the first time that the Court reversed a state criminal conviction for a violation of a constitutional provision concerning criminal procedure.[1]
Pace v. Alabama (1883): In a unanimous decision delivered by Justice Field, the court upheld Alabama's anti-miscegenation laws. Pace was later overruled by Loving v. Virginia (1967) on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause.
The Civil Rights Cases (1883): In an 8–1 decision delivered by Justice Bradley, the court struck down part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, holding that the Equal Protection Clause and the Thirteenth Amendment do not protect against racial discrimination by private actors. The decision has not been overturned, and most future legislation against private discrimination (such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964) was passed on the basis of the Commerce Clause.
Presser v. Illinois (1886): In a decision delivered by Justice Woods, the court affirmed its decision in Cruikshank, saying that the First and Second Amendments do not apply to state governments. The decision overturned the conviction of Herman Presser, a member of Lehr und Wehr Verein, a Chicago-based socialist military organization.
The Waite Court confronted constitutional questions arising from the Civil War, Reconstruction, the expansion of the federal government following the Civil War, and the emergence of a national economy linked together by railroads.[2] The Waite Court issued several major decisions, including Cruikshank, that denied the federal government the power to protect the civil rights of African Americans.[3] However, historian Michael Les Benedict notes that the civil rights decision were made during the era of dual federalism, and the Waite Court was sincerely concerned with maintaining the balance of power between the federal government and state governments.[4] While the Waite Court struck down civil rights laws, it upheld many economic regulations, in contrast with the Fuller Court.[5]
Referencesedit
^Michael J. Klarman, The Racial Origins of Modern Criminal Procedure, 99 Mich. L. Rev. 48 (2000).
^Stephenson, D. Grier (2003). The Waite Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy. ABC-CLIO. pp. xi–xiii. ISBN 9781576078297. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
^Davis, Abraham L. (25 July 1995). The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights: From Marshall to Rehnquist. SAGE Publications. pp. 17–18. ISBN 9781452263793. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
^Benedict, Michael Les (1978). "Preserving Federalism: Reconstruction and the Waite Court". The Supreme Court Review. 1978: 41–44. doi:10.1086/scr.1978.3109529. JSTOR 3109529. S2CID 147451330.
^Benedict, Michael Les (2011). "New Perspectives on the Waite Court". Tulsa Law Review. 47 (1): 112–113. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
Further readingedit
Abraham, Henry Julian (2008). Justices, Presidents, and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Bush II. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742558953.
Beth, Loren P. (2015). John Marshall Harlan: The Last Whig Justice. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813149851.
Friedman, Leon; Israel, Fred L., eds. (1995). The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0-7910-1377-4.
Goldstone, Lawrence (2011). Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903. Walker Books. ISBN 978-0802717924.
Hall, Kermit L.; Ely, James W. Jr.; Grossman, Joel B., eds. (2005). The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195176612.
Hall, Kermit L.; Ely, James W. Jr., eds. (2009). The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195379396.
Hall, Timothy L. (2001). Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 9781438108179.
Hoffer, Peter Charles; Hoffer, WilliamJames Hull; Hull, N. E. H. (2018). The Supreme Court: An Essential History (2nd ed.). University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-2681-6.
Howard, John R. (1999). The Shifting Wind: The Supreme Court and Civil Rights from Reconstruction to Brown. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791440896.
Irons, Peter (2006). A People's History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our Constitution (Revised ed.). Penguin. ISBN 9781101503133.
Kens, Paul (1997). Justice Stephen Field: Shaping Liberty from the Gold Rush to the Gilded Age. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700608171.
Kens, Paul (2012). The Supreme Court under Morrison R. Waite, 1874-1888. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 9781611172195.
Lane, Charles (2008). The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9781429936781.
Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990). The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography. Congressional Quarterly Books. ISBN 0-87187-554-3.
Ross, Michael A. (2003). Justice of Shattered Dreams: Samuel Freeman Miller and the Supreme Court during the Civil War Era. LSU Press. ISBN 9780807129241.
Schwarz, Bernard (1995). A History of the Supreme Court. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195093872.
Stephenson, D. Grier (2003). The Waite Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781576078297.
Tomlins, Christopher, ed. (2005). The United States Supreme Court: The Pursuit of Justice. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0618329694.
Urofsky, Melvin I. (1994). The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8153-1176-1.
White, Richard (2017). The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age: 1865–1896. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190619060.
Yarbrough, Tinsley E. (1995). Judicial Enigma: the First Justice Harlan. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195074642.