One of the issues exhibited in the Civil Rights Cases was the protection of civil rights versus the protection of what has been deemed as social rights. The argument of Justice Bradley indicted that the 13th and 14th Amendment can only be

Harlan felt the Court in its opinion abandoned the familiar rule that the full effect be given to the intent with which the amendment was adopted. To illustrate the basis of this argument he pointed to Chief Justice Marshall's words in his opinion in McCullock v. Maryland which established the precedent of judicial review, the basis of the power of the Supreme Court. Justice Marshall noted that the national legislature must be allowed the discretion to "enable it to perform the high duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial to be people." This doctrine should not be abandoned now, Justice Harlan said, when the issue involved is not dealing with master's rights, but the protection of the very rights of citizenship that embody freedom. The 14th amendment was created for a purpose to ensure equal rights to all citizens so that they may exercise those rights. That purpose, interpreting the amendment so it most benefits the people, grants Congress the power to enforce its provisions by appropriate legislation. "No interpretation of the words in which those powers are granted can be a sound one," Harlan strongly urges, "which narrows down their ordinary import so as to defeat those objects."

The most convincing and powerful arguments of Justice Harlan exist in his basis for the loose interpretation of the Constitution, the spirit upon which the amendments were intended.

Justice Harlan's sole dissenting opinion argued to the contrary of the majority opinion stating that social rights could be in fact be construed as of public consequence. He pointed to the case Munn v. Illinois where the court found in a 7-2 decision that where the public has a definite and positive interest in a business, they have a right to regulate the operations of that business. "The law may therefore regulate, to some extent, " he reasoned "the mode in which they shall be conducted." He went on to say "the public have rights in respect of such places, which may be vindicated by the law. It is consequently not a matter purely of private concern." The Congress must have the authority to legislate on rights and privileges granted to its citizens by the Constitution in order to prevent those rights from being tarnished.

Justice Harlan, however, notes that the States right to legislate domestic affairs is not infringed upon with the enforcement of this law. It simply recognizes the enlarged powers conferred on the federal government by the two amendments. The States still retain their right to regulate the civil and social rights of its citizens; however, it is not subject to the expressly granted power of Congress to enforce to provisions of the 14th Amendment by legislation if deemed necessary. For Congress to be held from protecting the very rights that are the principle of Republican citizenship the foundations upon national supremacy rests will be greatly disturbed. It will allow, he added, for the very rights and freedoms of American citizenship to be in jeopardy while previously those same rights were afforded without any indecision to white slave owners in the protection of slavery.

Another issue at arms in the decision was the extracting of implied or expressed powers from the Constitution in regar

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