АҚШ Жоғарғы Сотының 1876 жылғы «Круикшанк» ісі және құқықтар шектеуі

1876 U. S. Supreme Court case restricting the Bill of Rights to the federal gov. only

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 (1876), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court ruling that the U. S. Bill of Rights did not limit the power of private actors or state governments despite the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. It reversed the federal criminal convictions for the civil rights violations committed in aid of anti Reconstruction murders. Decided during the Reconstruction Era, the case represented a major defeat for federal efforts to protect the civil rights of African Americans. The case developed from the strongly contested 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election and the subsequent Colfax massacre, in which dozens of black people and three white people were killed. Federal charges were brought against several whites using the Enforcement Act of 1870, which prohibited two or more people from conspiring to deprive anyone of their constitutional rights. Charges included hindering the freedmen's First Amendment right to freely assemble and their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice Morrison Waite reversed the convictions of the defendants, judging that the plaintiffs had to rely on Louisiana state courts for protection. Waite ruled that neither the First Amendment nor the Second Amendment limited the powers of state governments or individuals. He further ruled that the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limited the lawful actions of state governments, but not of individuals. The decision left African Americans in the South at the mercy of increasingly hostile state governments dominated by white Democratic legislatures, and allowed groups such as the Ku Klux Klan to continue to use paramilitary force to suppress black voting. Cruikshank was the first case to come before the Supreme Court that involved a possible violation of the Second Amendment. Decades after Cruikshank, the Supreme Court began incorporating the Bill of Rights to apply to state governments. The Court incorporated the First Amendment's freedom of assembly in De Jonge v. Oregon (1937), while the Second Amendment was incorporated in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010).

On Sunday, April 13, 1873, an armed white militia overpowered Black freedmen and state militia occupying the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana after the contested 1872 election for governor of Louisiana and local offices. The election results were still undetermined at the beginning of spring, and both Republican and Fusionists had certified their own candidates for the local offices of sheriff and justice of the peace. Federal troops reinforced the election of the Republican governor, William Pitt Kellogg. At the massacre, most of the freedmen were killed after surrendering, and nearly another 50 were killed later that night after being held as prisoners for several hours. Estimates of the number of dead have varied over the years, ranging from 62 to 153; three whites died but the number of Black victims was difficult to determine because many bodies were thrown into the Red River or removed for burial, possibly at mass graves. Some members of the white gangs were indicted and charged by the Enforcement Act of 1870. The Act had been designed primarily to allow Federal enforcement and prosecution of actions of the Ku Klux Klan and other secret vigilante groups against blacks, both for violence and murder and for preventing them from voting. Among other provisions, the law made it a felony for two or more people to conspire to deprive anyone of his constitutional rights. The white defendants were charged with sixteen counts, divided into two sets of eight each. Among the charges included violating the freedmen's rights to lawfully assemble, to vote, and to bear arms.

Justice Clifford agreed with the other Justices to rescind the indictments but for entirely different reasons: he opined that section five of the 14th Amendment vested the federal government with the power to legislate the actions of individuals who restrict the constitutional rights of others, but he found that the indictments were worded too vaguely to allow the defendants to prepare an effective defense.

African Americans in the South were left to the mercy of increasingly hostile state governments dominated by white Democratic legislatures; neither the legislatures, law enforcement, nor the courts worked to protect freedmen. As white Democrats regained power in the late 1870s, they struggled to suppress black Republican voting through intimidation and fraud at the polls. Paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts acted on behalf of the Democrats to suppress black voting. In addition, from 1890 to 1908, 10 of the 11 former Confederate states passed disfranchising constitutions or amendments, with provisions for poll taxes, residency requirements, literacy tests,

All five Justices of the majority had been appointed by Republicans (three by Lincoln, two by Grant). The lone Democratic appointee Nathan Clifford dissented.