A private little Slaughter-House Cases

The Slaughter-House Cases was a shocking reactionary retreat from what had been accomplished with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. But it was not the first such case. Three years earlier, the California Supreme Court decided a similar case called People v. Brady, in which it declared that if the Justices thought the Amendment had been designed to provide federal protection for civil rights, then they would “regard [the Amendment] as we would a law apparently legalizing murder or robbery”!

(Cross-posted at The Volokh Conspiracy)