In 1873, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling decided The Slaughterhouse Cases, which narrowly interpreted the new Privileges and Immunities Clause of the recently ratified 14th Amendment. With this year marking the 150th anniversary of the decision, we’re joined today by two leading scholars to understand what The Slaughterhouse Cases were about, and why some scholars and judges–including current Supreme Court justices like Justice Clarence Thomas–have criticized the decision and its effect on constitutional law doctrines; while others have agreed with its interpretation. Guests Kurt Lash, professor at the University of Richmond Law School, and Kermit Roosevelt, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, join to discuss the history and story of the case; what happened after it was decided; and what would happen in constitutional law today if the case was overturned. Host Jeffrey Rosen moderates.
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Today’s show was produced by Lana Ulrich and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Kevin Kilbourne. Research was provided by Emily Campbell, Sophia Gardell, Liam Kerr, Sam Desai, and Lana Ulrich.
Participants
Kurt Lash is the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Richmond. Founder and director of the Richmond program on the American Constitution, Professor Lash has published a number of works on the subjects of constitutional history, theory and law, including The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges or Immunities of American Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Kermit Roosevelt III is David Berger Professor for the Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. He is a member of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court and a member of the American Law Institute. His most recent book is The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story (2022).
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)
- McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010)
- Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022)
- Kurt Lash, “Why Slaughterhouse was right: The textual limits of the Privileges or Immunities Clause,” Washington Post (2014)
- Kurt Lash, The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities of American Citizenship (2015)
- Kermit Roosevelt, “What if Slaughterhouse had been decided differently?”
- Kermit Roosevelt, The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America's Story (2022)
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
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