The Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 US 36, was an 1873 U.S. Supreme Court decision on a series of cases in which the Court expressed its first interpretation of the privileges or immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court interpreted this clause as protecting the rights Americans have by virtue of their U.S. citizenship, not by virtue of their citizenship of a state. It then defined the rights of U.S. citizens narrowly, excluding civil rights. The dissents, and modern critics of the case, say that this effectively rendered the clause meaningless.
[Last updated in March of 2024 by the Wex Definitions Team]