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The importance of the fourteenth amendment
Critical analysis of 14th amendmentessay
The importance of the fourteenth amendment
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Causes and Effects: Constitutional Corporate Personhood During the late nineteenth century, the court and the constitution blatantly favored large corporations. They did this through the interpretation of the United States Constitution, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment, as it pertained to corporations. This led to the decision regarding the Wabash vs. Illinois case and in turn to the creation of Interstate Commerce Commission. In May of 1886, the case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad was decided. The case dealt with the how taxation of railroad companies should be handled. The decision ruled by the Supreme Court that the Fourteenth Amendment’s use of the word “person/s” was also pertaining to the rights of corporations. This was one of the most important of many cases that were ruled out using this same stipulation. This is one of many cases that have been decided using this interpretation of the Constitution since 1819, when the Dartmouth College vs. Woodward case was decided. Regarding the Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad case, the Chief Jus...
In 1898, congress passed the Erdman Act, which prohibited employers from firing employees based on if they join a union. An employer for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, William Adair, violated the statute by firing O.B. Coppage for his participation in a labor organization. The court, in a 6 to 2 vote, held that the statute not only violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, it also held that congress’s power over interstate commerce does not extend to memberships in unions. The court uses substantive due process to read into the Fifth Amendment the laborers and employers right to ‘liberty of contract,” which Justice Harlan points out by citing the similar ruling in Lochner. The court reads it as the right of individuals to enter into contracts to either purchase or sell labor, which the law violated by limiting the rights of both the employer and employee. The court also rejected the argument that the law was within congressional power under interstate commerce by stating no logical correlation between union memberships and how it would affect intersta...
During this era, businesses supplied large amounts of employment for citizens which created power for these businesses. They had the power to provide bad working conditions, lower wages, and fire their employees without any justification (Doc 1). George E. McNeill, a labor leader, states how “whim is law” and one can not object to it. The government took a laissez-faire approach and refused to regulate economic factors. This allowed robber barons and business tycoons to gain more authority of each industry through the means of horizontal and vertical integration. It wasn’t until later in the time period that the government passed a few acts to regulate these companies, such as the ICC and the Sherman Antitrust Act. One of the main successful industries was
During the nineteenth and twentieth century monopolizing corporations reigned over territories, natural resources, and material goods. They dominated banks, railroads, factories, mills, steel, and politics. With companies and industrial giants like Andrew Carnegies’ Steel Company, John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company and J.P. Morgan in which he reigned over banks and financing. Carnegie and Rockefeller both used vertical integration meaning they owned everything from the natural resources (mines/oil rigs), transportation of those goods (railroads), making of those goods (factories/mills), and the selling of those goods (stores). This ultimately led to monopolizing of corporations. Although provided vast amount of jobs and goods, also provided ba...
While Jim Crow was blatantly incongruent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of the full benefits of citizenry, it was justified by the Plessy vs. Ferguson Case of 1896 in which the Supreme Court upheld Louisiana’s Separate Car Act, requiring racially segregated railroad facilities, under the condition that such facilities were equal. This “separate but equal” doctrine was quickly, and legally, applied t...
Wagner, F. D. (2010). McDonald et al. v. City of Chicago, Illinois, et al.. Supreme Court of the United States, 1, 1-214. Retrieved May 4, 2014, from http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1521.pdf
People have been debating the meaning of the Second Amendment since its ratification on December 15, 1791. One side feels that the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution to protect collective rights as seen in ”United States v. Miller,” while the opposing side feels that it was meant to protect individual
Judge Leslie Tiller and Judge Simon Skinner serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, respectively. Each judge has an involved history with Minnesota’s governor, Joyce Cooper. In this paper, I address whether the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause bars Skinner and Tiller from hearing two unique cases to which Cooper is a party: the Sierra Club Case and the Cooper Corruption Case. I address each of the two cases in two distinct parts of the paper, labeled II and III, respectively, and in part I, I detail the relevant facts that frame this question. Subheading each of those three parts is two additional subparts, A and B. In all sections, subpart A concerns Tiller
...ay to the rise of big business. Americas population was increasing, many citizens were employed and making money, and more eager to spend. Some of the businesses got too big and antitrust acts, such as the Sherman anti-trust act, were passed to control the powers of monopolies and their owners. Not only were there monopolistic companies in the corporate world, there were monopolies in the railroad business as well. The control of railroads became an issue in politics over the abuses and operations of the rail systems. Soon, the federal agencies Interstate Commerce Commission was formed as the first regulatory agency to control private businesses in the public?s interest. More and more control was placed upon Americas businesses and corporations and from this grew unions, as well as conflicts between management and labor, all of which exist today.
The extents of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution has been long discussed since its adoption in mid-late 1800s. Deciding cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade has been possible due to mentioned amendment. These past cases not only show the progression of American society, but also highlights the degree of versatility that is contained within the amendment. Now, in 2015, the concerns are not of racial segregation or abortion, the extent of the amendment was brought to a new field: same-sex marriage. In Obergefell v Hodges, we can see the epitome of the Equal Protection Clause.
The Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case (163 U.S. 537) began on April 13, 1896 and ended on May 18, 1896 when the court made their decision; this case is between Homer Adolph Plessy and John Ferguson. The main issue in this case was racial segregation; Plessy was told to sit in the section of the train that is meant for African Americans, but he refused. The question that is being asked is if “Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains [is] an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment?” (Oyez). The amendments that are being violated are the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause.
The court decided that Plessy’s 13th amendment rights weren't violated at all. “The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but, in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, distinguished from political, equality” This shows how Judge Ferguson believed that the thirteenth amendment only made the two races equal on a political stance, and not a social one. This is why Justice Ferguson ruled the way he did, because he believed that the railroad was a social issue and if “ the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities” This shows how Justice Ferguson said that he couldn’t change
The Commerce Clause derives out of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. This Clause was established in 1787 and gives Congress the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes” (The Legal Information Institute). This is to ensure that the Constitution is balancing certain powers for the federal government. On the other hand, the Tenth Amendment states that “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” (The Legal Information Institute). In past cases, such has Heart of Atlanta Motel vs. United States, United States v. Lopez and United States v.
Constitutionally, the case at first appears to be a rather one-sided violation of the First Amendment as incorporated through the Fourteenth. The court, however, was of a different opinion: "...
... farmers. They was losing land for the production of railroads. To solve this solution the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was put in place. The Supreme Court would rules that individual states could not regulate interstate commerce and discriminate against out of state business. Also, President Cleveland was forces to give out land to the public.
Make a list of the rights of a corporation and a separate list of the responsibilities. Which is longer? Why do you think this is?