Civil Rights

Civil Rights and Commerce Clause

It had been generally established some time ago that Congress had power under the Commerce Clause to prohibit racial discrimination in the use of the channels of commerce.1 The power under the clause to forbid discrimination within the states was firmly and unanimously sustained by the Court when Congress in 1964 enacted a comprehensive measure outlawing discrimination because of race or color in access to public accommodations with a requisite connection to interstate commerce.2 Hotels and motels were declared covered&emdash;that is, declared to “affect commerce”&emdash; if they provided lodging to transient guests; restaurants, cafeterias, and the like, were covered only if they served or offered to serve interstate travelers or if a substantial portion of the food which they served had moved in commerce.3 The Court sustained the Act as applied to a downtown Atlanta motel that did serve interstate travelers,4 to an out-of-the-way restaurant in Birmingham that catered to a local clientele but that had spent 46 percent of its previous year's out-go on meat from a local supplier who had procured it from out-of-state,5 and to a rural amusement area operating a snack bar and other facilities, which advertised in a manner likely to attract an interstate clientele and that served food a substantial portion of which came from outside the state.6

More about Civil Rights

Writing for the Court in Heart of Atlanta Motel and McClung, Justice Clark denied that Congress was disabled from regulating the operations of motels or restaurants because those operations may be, or may appear to be, “local” in character. “[T]he power of Congress to promote interstate commerce also includes the power to regulate the local incidents thereof, including local activities in both the States of origin and destination, which might have a substantial and harmful effect upon that commerce.” 7

Civil Rights: Developments

But, it was objected, Congress is regulating on the basis of moral judgments and not to facilitate commercial intercourse. “That Congress [may legislate] . . . against moral wrongs . . . rendered its enactments no less valid. In framing Title II of this Act Congress was also dealing with what it considered a moral problem. But that fact does not detract from the overwhelming evidence of the disruptive effect that racial discrimination has had on commercial intercourse. It was this burden which empowered Congress to enact appropriate legislation, and, given this basis for the exercise of its power, Congress was not restricted by the fact that the particular obstruction to interstate commerce with which it was dealing was also deemed a moral and social wrong.” 8 The evidence did, in fact, noted the Justice, support Congress's conclusion that racial discrimination impeded interstate travel by more than 20 million black citizens, which was an impairment Congress could legislate to remove.9

Other Aspects

The Commerce Clause basis for civil rights legislation prohibiting private discrimination was important because of the understanding that Congress's power to act under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments was limited to official discrimination.10 The Court's subsequent determination that Congress is not necessarily so limited in its power reduces greatly the importance of the Commerce Clause in this area.11

Resources

References

This text about Civil Rights is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

[Footnote 1] Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454 (1960); Henderson v. United States, 339 U.S. 816 (1950); Mitchell v. United States, 313 U.S. 80 (1941); Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946).

[Footnote 2] Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title II, 78 Stat. 241, 243, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000a et seq.

[Footnote 3] 42 U.S.C. § 2000a(b).

[Footnote 4] Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964).

[Footnote 5] Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964).

[Footnote 6] Daniel v. Paul, 395 U.S. 298 (1969).

[Footnote 7] Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 258 (1964); Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 301-04 (1964).

[Footnote 8] Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 257 (1964).

[Footnote 9] 379 U.S. at 252-53; Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 299-301 (1964).

[Footnote 10] Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883); United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. 214 (1876); Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U.S. 651 (1951).

[Footnote 11] The Fair Housing Act (Title VIIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968), 82 Stat. 73, 81, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601 et seq., was based on the Commerce Clause, but, in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968), the Court held that legislation that prohibited discrimination in housing could be based on the Thirteenth Amendment and made operative against private parties. Similarly, the Court has concluded that, although § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment is judicially enforceable only against “state action,” Congress is not so limited under its enforcement authorization of § 5. United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 761, 774 (1966) (concurring opinions); Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88 (1971).

Tables of Contents

• Civil Rights and other Topics in the Contents – Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution
• U.S. Constitutional Law Category
• List of amendments to the U.S. Constitution
• Civil Rights and other Topics in the Constitution Contents
• Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (Table of Contents)
• Clauses of the Constitution (Table of Contents)