U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876) decision Background According to my textbook: In Cruikshank ... the [Supreme] Court ruled that voting rights remained a state prerogative unless the state itself violated those rights. So long as the civil rights of former slaves were being violated by individuals or private groups (including the Klan), that was a state responsibility and beyond federal jurisdiction. Therefore, the Fourteenth Amendment did not protect citizens from armed vigilantes, even if those vigilantes seized political power. The Court thus gutted the Fourteenth Amendment. (America, A Concise History) Emphasis mine. This does not make much sense to me. This decision is in the context of the (very violent) intimidation of blacks especially by ex-Confederates followed by a Democratic political coup. From what I understand, the Democrats disenfranchised African Americans. The Supreme Court then ruled that it was the state's responsibility to ensure that its citizen's rights were not infringed upon. First contention Firstly, why would it be the state's responsibility to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, which is part of the Constitution? The Fourteenth Amendment states, The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. (Section 5 of the 14th Amendment) Does this, not to mention that it is a Constitutional amendment, not imply that issues pertaining to the Fourteenth Amendment, such as equal access to voting (Section 2 of the 14th Amendment), are under federal jurisdiction? Second contention If "private groups" like the KKK took political power, would the governments that they became part of not be violating former slaves' civil rights (as opposed to just private individuals)? Therefore, it would be that state's duty under the Fourteenth Amendment to address the illegal actions of actors within its jurisdiction. However, if the state fails to address these actions, would it not then become the federal government's jurisdiction since the state failed to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment within its borders? Would the plaintiff have needed to sue the state for failing to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment in order for it to be under federal jurisdiction? Closing I am not very fluent in law things, so please excuse me for any misused vocabulary (like "jurisdiction"), nor do I have a thorough understanding of federal vs. state jurisdiction or Constitutional law.
First, the &quot;state action&quot; requirement is the norm for most civil rights violations. The U.S. Constitution is structured in such a way that it is designed solely to protect people from government overreach. Statutes engaged by legislative bodies at the state and federal level protect people from misconduct by private parties. For example, ordinary state criminal laws would ordinarily forbid private parties from acting as armed vigilantes to prevent people from doing pretty much anything. And, if armed vigilantes were doing something that government officials and politically powerful people in the state didn't approve of, they would have been arrested, charged and convicted of crimes by the police. The trouble is that in the U.S. legal system, if the government decides not to enforce its criminal laws, you are limited to bringing civil lawsuits against the offenders for damages or injunctive relief (e.g. a court order ordering the vigilantes to stop misbehaving). But, as a practical matter, private lawsuits are not very effective when the courts and government officials are determined to thwart you and so are a significant share of the members of any jury pool. (This is one of the reasons, as a matter of logic, for the Second Amendment, because you need some way to protect yourself from crimes if the government exercises its right to do nothing to protect you from criminals even when it is capable of doing so.) The U.S. Constitutional and legal system requires the good faith of the elected officials in state and federal government to work properly. But, if majorities of voters under whatever flawed electoral system is currently in place are bound and determined to suppress a political minority, the democratic features of our political system make it very hard to intervene to protect that political minority. As you note, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution (collectively, the Civil Rights Amendments) all empower Congress to enact legislation enforcing those provisions in addition to any self-executing effect that they have, although the exact scope of that enforcement power was at the time a matter of some legal debate and in any event often wasn't exercised by Congress (which by then had white, anti-civil rights members in many House and Senate seats). But, in U.S. v. Cruikshank a very racist U.S. Supreme Court held that the state action requirement applied not just to self-executing aspects of the Civil Rights Amendments, but also to the 1870 Enforcement Act adopted by Congress during Reconstruction with an intent to stop precisely the kind of armed private action that occurred. It held that the 1870 Enforcement Act as applied to private parties was unconstitutional. (Around the same time the Slaughterhouse cases gutted the privileges and immunities clause of the Constitution, and Plessy v. Ferguson gutted the 14th Amendment with the &quot;separate but equal&quot; doctrine.) However, if the state fails to address these actions, would it not then become the federal government's jurisdiction since the state failed to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment within its borders? No. The U.S. Constitution doesn't provide much protection at all against state inaction. (The human rights tribunal for the Americas has faulted the U.S. for violating human rights by not having protections against this kind of conduct which all Latin American countries do have.) Would the plaintiff have needed to sue the state for failing to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment in order for it to be under federal jurisdiction? No. The plaintiff would have no remedy, which was basically the intended and expected effect of U.S. v. Cruikshank. The justice of the U.S. Supreme Court weren't any more stupid then than they are now. They just had different values and part of those values was the belief that it wasn't the place of the federal government to curb the acts of groups like the KKK and Jim Crow laws (in part to prevent a re-ignition of the Civil War in a post-Reconstruction period when white supremacists were more powerful than ever in the states that had previously fought a war with overwhelming support from majorities of people entitled to vote to preserve slavery). The Civil Rights Amendments were shoved down the throats of the Southern states as a condition for readmission to equal standing in the Union free of military law and civil disabilities during Reconstruction. So, they ratified those amendments under duress and then did everything they could to reinstate the pre-civil war system as completely as possible which they had still believed in despite losing the Civil War (and indeed, modern political figures like Roy Moore, a previous Alabama Supreme Court Justice, still want to return their states and the nation to the ante-bellum South, and argue that slavery was as much good as it was bad for the slaves and for the South). It took a century and two World Wars and the Korean War, in which African-Americans served in the military for the U.S., and a thriving post-war economy, for those attitudes to change. Ultimately, in light of this ruling, in the 1960s, the Civil Rights Acts were adopted by Congress to regulate discriminatory conduct by private parties, not with the justification and authority of enforcement powers of the Civil Rights Amendments, but instead based upon the interstate commerce clause whose scope had been dramatically expanded during the Great Depression in cases like Wickard v. Filburn, a choice which a pro-civil rights U.S. Supreme Court gave its stamp of approval in the Heart of Atlanta Motel case.
The 24th Amendment states: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. But, no one in incarcerated in prison (and hence loses the right to vote) merely for failing to pay taxes. Usually, one is incarcerated in prison on tax charges for fraud in connection with one's tax obligation which is different from failure to pay. (A misdemeanor conviction does not result in the loss of an ability to vote, even while in jail.) Refusal to pay, on grounds other than lacking the money (inability to pay isn't a criminal offense), when done without full compliance with other tax return filing obligations, is tantamount to tax litigation abuse and abuse of process, not mere failure to pay a debt.
Immigration and naturalization is pretty far out of my comfort zone, but I'm confident that the answer is yes. Although people often believe that a foreign embassy is considered the territory of that country, I don't know of any law that supports that belief. Instead, through the Vienna Convention, the embassy grounds remain the territory of the host state but are provided a variety of protections and immunities because of their diplomatic status. With the embassy on U.S. soil, the child would therefore satisfy the "born ... in the United States" prong of the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause.* But that would not be the end of the analysis, as birthright citizenship also requires not just that the child is born in the United States, but also that the child be "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." So if the child were born to an American citizen who had entered the Indian embassy to get a travel visa, the child would be both born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, making it eligible for birthright citizenship. But if the child were born to Indian ambassador or to diplomatic staff, who would generally be able to claim diplomatic immunity, that child would not be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and would not be able to claim birthright citizenship. Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36, 73, (1872) ("The phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States."). * I haven't been able to find any cases saying this explicitly, but all the cases involving children born in foreign embassies sort of skip over the question as though they just assume that the child was born in the United States. See, e.g., Raya v. Clinton, 703 F. Supp. 2d 569 (W.D. Va. 2010); Nikoi v. Attorney Gen. of U.S., 939 F.2d 1065 (D.C. Cir. 1991) These cases also go on to conclude that those children are not citizens of the United States, because they are not "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."
US Constitutional law generally recognizes the right of freedom of movement, e.g. in Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed. Cas. 546, Crandall v. Nevada, 73 U.S. 35, Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 168. The more recent case Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 affirms the position that restricting the "right to travel violates the Equal Protection Clause absent a compelling governmental interest", and one of the specific rights subsumed under the right to travel is "the right to enter and leave another State". The "compelling governmental interest" is a reference to standard of judicial review known as strict scrutiny, where a law that restricts a fundamental right (the right to travel) is required for a "compelling state interest", is "narrowly tailored" to that purpose, and is the "least restrictive means". It is highly likely that each state has a statute that grants broad powers to the governor in case of a state of emergency. Such an order would then have to be scrutinized strictly, with respect to the narrow tailoring and least restrictive aspects of the question. We would then have to analyze the specifics of the case and order.
Under Article VI of the US Constitution, the federal constitution and valid federal laws are the supreme law of the land, and judges in every state are bound to apply them regardless of anything in the laws or constitution of any state.* If a state legislature passes a law banning same-sex marriage, a state court is required under the federal constitution to instead apply the federal constitution (as interpreted by the US Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges) and rule as though same-sex marriage is legal. When it comes to a federal court, things are even easier: a state cannot command a federal court to do anything. A federal court’s authority is laid out in Article III of the federal constitution and in federal statute, which (per Article VI) is supreme over anything in the laws or constitution of any state. There have been times where states attempted to challenge federal supremacy. Normally, this is handled by going to federal court. Decisions in state courts can ultimately be appealed to the US Supreme Court, which can reverse them if they incorrectly applied federal law. Most of the time, that’s the end of matters: when a federal court rules, state officials comply. Occasionally, that’s not enough. If a state disobeys the orders of a federal court, they can be enforced by federal agents. If even that isn’t enough, the President can deploy the armed forces to uphold federal authority. * There are situations which are more complicated, like when something is a federal crime but not a state crime. I can do more research on that if you want, but for now I’m going to leave it at “it’s more complicated.”
This article surveys the law, as of 2014. The answer is "yes or no, depending on which circuit". In US v. Chafin 423 F. App’x 342, the court decided that although the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms, it does not necessarily give rise to a corresponding right to sell a firearm drawing an analogy to US v. 12 200-Foot Reels of Super 8mm. Film, 413 U.S. 123 "the protected right to possess obscene material in the privacy of one's home does not give rise to a correlative right to have someone sell or give it to others". Likewise the 9th weighs in, in Montana Shooting Sports Association v. Holder, 727 F.3d 975: Heller said nothing about extending Second Amendment protection to firearm manufacturers or dealers. If anything, Heller recognized that firearms manufacturers and dealers are properly subject to regulation Contrarily, in the Northern Illinois district in Illinois Association of Firearms Retailers v. City of Chicago, the court finds in response to a ban on the sale of firearms in the city that. the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment. This right must also include the right to acquire a firearm...the ordinances are declared unconstitutional The same court in Kole v. Village of Norridge determined that the would-be operator of a gun store, thus has derivative standing to assert the subsidiary right to acquire arms on behalf of his customers both decisions relying on Ezell v. City of Chicago, 651 F.3d 684, where the city sought indirect means to encumber the exercise 2nd of Amendment rights (banning shooting ranges). The final answer will have to be made by SCOTUS, and so far there is nothing on the docket that could decide the matter. Instead, the question will be answered based on level of scrutiny for firearms regulations and whether " the government can establish that the challenged law regulates activity falling outside the scope of the right as originally understood"; and if it is not outside the scope of the 2nd Amendment, "then there must be a second inquiry into the strength of the government’s justification for restricting or regulating the exercise of Second Amendment rights".
Yes. American descendents of African slaves filed several lawsuits in the early 2000s seeking &quot;monetary relief under both federal and state law for harms stemming from the enslavement of black people in America,&quot; i.e., reparations. Those cases were consolidated into a single case heard in Chicago, where the judge ruled there was no standing to bring the cases, given the many degrees of separation between the defendants' conduct in the 1800s and the 21st Century plaintiffs. The Seventh Circuit affirmed: If there were a legal wrong, it would not be a wrong to any living persons unless they were somehow the authorized representatives to bring suits on behalf of their enslaved ancestors. With some exceptions to be noted, the plaintiffs are suing to redress harms to third parties (their ancestors), without being authorized to sue on behalf of those parties. It is like a suit by a descendant of a Union soldier, killed in battle, against a Civil War era gun manufacturer still in business that sold guns to the Confederacy in violation of federal law. A federal court could not entertain the suit because the plaintiff would be unable to prove a harm to an interest of his (such as his bank account) that the law protects. In re African-Am. Slave Descendants Litig., 471 F.3d 754, 760–61 (7th Cir. 2006). The Seventh Circuit permitted one very small portion of the case to proceed, and the Supreme Court declined to review the case.
In the case of United States vs Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (a 6-2 decision), the Supreme Court wrote: [T]he real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, &quot;All persons born in the United States&quot; by the addition &quot;and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,&quot; would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases -- children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State -- both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country. ... [T]he Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States. ... To hold that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution excludes from citizenship the children, born in the United States, of citizens or subjects of other countries would be to deny citizenship to thousands of persons of English, Scotch, Irish, German, or other European parentage who have always been considered and treated as citizens of the United States. In short the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes three and only three groups of people: Children born to foreign diplomats here on diplomatic business, who have diplomatic immunity to US Law; Children of members of an invading army that has occupied and controlled some part of US territory, born on that occupied area, who are obviously not subject to US Law (which has rarely happened in the US, although Guam was occupied during WWII, and parts of Alaska, and small parts of Maine during the War of 1812); and Members of Native American tribes, subject to the jurisdiction of their tribal governments, who do not pay US taxes. (This was true when the 14th amendment was passed, but it no longer is. See section below on the act that changed it in 1924.) Any other person born in the proper US or in incorporated US territory is a citizen, no matter who his or her parents are or were. (The case is less clear for unincorporated US territory.) See also the Wikipedia article on the case This view was confirmed in 1995 in an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel written by then-Assistant Attorney General Walter Dellinger, taking the position that this rule could not be changed by legislation, only by Constitutional Amendment, writing: My office grapples with many difficult and close issues of constitutional law. The lawfulness of this bill is not among them. This legislation is unquestionably unconstitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment declares that “[a]ll persons bom or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1. The unmistakable purpose of this provision was to constitutionalize the existing Anglo-American common law rule of jus soli or citizenship by place of birth and especially to extend it to persons of African descent and their descendants. In Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) the Supreme Court of the United States struck down both a state statute denying funding for education to children in the United States illegally and a municipal school district's attempt to charge an annual $1,000 tuition fee for each student. The case upheld the same principle that the constitutional phrase &quot;within the jurisdiction&quot; applies to the children of people who had entered the US illegally. According to the Wikipedia article on the case: Texas officials had argued that illegal aliens were not &quot;within the jurisdiction&quot; of the state and thus could not claim protections under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court majority rejected this claim, finding instead that &quot;no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident immigrants whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident immigrants whose entry was unlawful.&quot; The dissenting opinion also rejected this claim, agreeing with the Court that &quot;the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies to immigrants who, after their illegal entry into this country, are indeed physically 'within the jurisdiction' of a state.&quot; Thus the question of whether such aliens were &quot;within the jurisdiction&quot; of the US was very much at issue in Plyler v. Doe EDIT: Since the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 was passed, all Native Americans born within the US have been citizens by birth, and the third class of exceptions noted in the earlier cases non longer exists. Prior to this act Native Americans were in many ways treated as foreigners by the US. They were not citizens by birth, and their tribes had some but not all of the attributes of independent nations. The text of the law is: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property. (End edit on Indian Citizenship Act of 1924) Edit: On reading through the decision of the case of Wong Kim Ark I find one more small exclusion: persons born on board a foreign naval ship, even though present in US waters in time of peace, are not citizens of the US because of their birth location. This is apparently not a usual case, but is premised on the ground that a military vessel remains the territory of the nation it belongs to. Such persons might of course be citizens by inheritance if one or both parents are US citizens, and the statutory conditions are complied with. (The term &quot;public ship&quot; in the 1800s was used to mean a national ship, that is a military ship.) (End edit on naval ships) I just learned that some parts of the State of Maine were occupied by the British during the war of 1812. I do not know if anyone was born during that occupation whose citizenship might have been affected.