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14th Amendment
The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment's first section includes several clauses: the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause. -
15th Amendment
prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments. -
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company
The unapportioned income taxes on interest, dividends and rents imposed by the Income Tax Act of 1894 were, in effect, direct taxes, and were unconstitutional because they violated the rule that direct taxes be apportioned. -
13th Amendment
abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime -
16th Amendment
Allows the Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states or basing it on Census results. This amendment exempted income taxes from the constitutional requirements regarding direct taxes, after income taxes on rents, dividends, and interest were ruled to be direct taxes in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895). -
17th Amendment
established direct election of United States Senators by popular vote -
Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad
1) The Sixteenth Amendment removes the requirement that income taxes (whether considered to be direct taxes or indirect taxes) be apportioned among the states according to population; (2) the Federal income tax statute does not violate the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against the government taking property without due process of law; (3) the Federal income tax statute does not violate the uniformity clause of Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. -
Stanton v. Baltic Mining Company
Despite taxing mining companies' capital to a degree, income taxes are not direct taxes, so need not be apportioned to be valid. Affirmed -
United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola
An ingredient may be considered "added" regardless of whether a product's formula called for it; whether a specific ingredient is harmful is a jury matter; compounded names (such as Coca-Cola) are only distinctive to the product and not the named ingredients should the name achieve a 'secondary significance' of the product itself. -
United States v. Oppenheimer
A criminal charge that has been adjudicated upon by a court having jurisdiction to hear and determine it, is final as to the matter so adjudicated upon, and may be pleaded in bar to any subsequent prosecution for the same offense -
Caminetti v. United States
The Mann Act applied not only to purposes of prostitution but also to other noncommercial consensual sexual liaisons. Thus, consensual extramarital sex falls within the genre of “immoral practice.” -
Bunting v. Oregon
No. The court affirmed the decision of the Oregon Supreme Court upholding the state law as constitutional. -
Adams v. Tanner
The Washington state law that prohibited employment agencies was unconstitutional, because a ban would breach the principle of due process of law in the deprivation of liberty and property. -
Buchanan v. Warley
Louisville, Kentucky ordinance compelling racial segregation of residential housing was unconstitutional in respect to the Fourteenth Amendment -
Chicago Board of Trade v. United States
The "call rule" of the Chicago Board of Trade was ultimately procompetitive, and did not violate the Sherman Act. -
Hammer v. Dagenhart
Congress has no power under the Commerce Clause to regulate labor conditions. -
International News Service v. Associated Press
While the information found in AP news was not copyrightable and subject to publici juris, AP has a quasi-property interest during the production of "hot news". -
Schenck v. United States
Defendant's criticism of the draft was not protected by the First Amendment, because it created a clear and present danger to the enlistment and recruiting practices of the U.S. armed forces during a state of war. -
Debs v. United States
Court examined several statements Debs had made re the war. While Debs had carefully guarded his speeches in an attempt to comply with the Espionage Act, the Court found he had still shown the "intention & effect of obstructing the draft & recruitment for the war." Among other things, the Court cited Debs's praise for those imprisoned for obstructing the draft. Decision against Debs, & maintained the power of the Espionage Act, sentencing Debs to ten yrs imprisonment, & a loss of citizenship -
Abrams v. United States
Defendants' criticism of U.S. involvement in World War I was not protected by the First Amendment, because they advocated a strike in munitions production and the violent overthrow of the government.