Definition: Slaughterhouse Cases

Slaughterhouse Cases, 1873

These were cases that put into question the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Louisiana created a corporation for the slaughtering of livestock. This corporation put all of the local slaughterhouses out of work. The butchers who lost their jobs believed that the Louisiana creation was a violation of their Fourteenth Amendment right to exercise free trade equally. The butchers lost, as the Supreme Court stated that the Amendment did not protect “privileges and immunities of citizenship” in a state. Therefore states could create a slaughterhouse for the health and safety of the public.

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