Petitioners, Negro citizens of Mississippi, filed a damages
action under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), charging that respondents, white
citizens of Mississippi, conspired to assault petitioners, who were
passengers "traveling upon the federal, state, and local highways"
in an automobile driven by one Grady, a citizen of Tennessee, for
the purpose of preventing them "and other Negro-Americans, through
. . . force, violence and intimidation, from seeking the equal
protection of the laws and from enjoying the equal rights,
privileges and immunities of citizens under the laws of the United
States and the State of Mississippi," including rights to free
speech, assembly, association, and movement, and the right not to
be enslaved. The complaint alleged that, pursuant to the
conspiracy, respondents, mistakenly believing Grady to be a civil
rights worker, blocked the travelers' passage on the public
highways, forced them from the car, held them at bay with firearms,
and, amidst threats of murder, clubbed them, inflicting serious
physical injury. Section 1985(3) provides:
"If two or more persons . . . conspire or go in disguise on the
highway or on the premises of another, for the purpose of depriving
. . . any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the
laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws [and] in
any case of conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more
persons engaged therein do . . . any act in furtherance of the
object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured . . . or
deprived of . . . any right or privilege of a citizen of the United
States, the party so injured or deprived"
may have a cause of action for damages against the conspirators.
The District Court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a
cause of action, relying on
Collins v. Hardyman,
341 U. S. 651,
where the Court, in order to avoid difficult constitutional
questions, in effect construed § 1985(3) to reach only conspiracies
under color of state law. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held:
1. Section 1985(3) does not require state action but reaches
private conspiracies, such as the one alleged in the complaint
here, that are aimed at invidiously discriminatory deprivation of
the
Page 403 U. S. 89
equal enjoyment of rights secured to all by law, as is clearly
manifested by the wording and legislative history of the statute
and companion statutory provisions, and the constitutional
impediments that influenced the Court's construction of the statute
in
Collins, supra, as is clear from more recent decisions,
simply do not exist. Pp.
403 U. S.
95-103.
2. Congress had the constitutional authority to reach a private
conspiracy of the sort alleged in the complaint in this case both
under § 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment and under its power to
protect the right of interstate travel. Pp. 104-106.
410 F.2d 817, reversed and remanded.
STEWART, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
BURGER, C.J., and BLACK, DOUGLAS, HARLAN (except for Part V-B),
BRENNAN, WHITE, MARSHALL, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined. HARLAN, J.,
filed a concurring statement,
post, p.
403 U. S.
107.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.
This litigation began when the petitioners filed a complaint in
the United States District Court for the Southern District of
Mississippi, seeking compensatory and punitive damages and
alleging, in substantial part, as follows:
"2. The plaintiffs are Negro citizens of the United States and
residents of Kemper County, Mississippi. . . . "
Page 403 U. S. 90
"3. The defendants, Lavon Breckenridge and James Calvin
Breckenridge, are white adult citizens of the United States
residing in DeKalb, Kemper County, Mississippi."
"4. On July 2, 1966, the . . . plaintiffs . . . were passengers
in an automobile belonging to and operated by R. G. Grady of
Memphis, Tennessee. They were traveling upon the federal, state and
local highways in and about DeKalb, Mississippi, performing various
errands and visiting friends."
"5. On July 2, 1966 defendants, acting under a mistaken belief
that R. G. Grady was a worker for Civil Rights for Negroes,
willfully and maliciously conspired, planned, and agreed to block
the passage of said plaintiffs in said automobile upon the public
highways, to stop and detain them, and to assault, beat and injure
them with deadly weapons. Their purpose was to prevent said
plaintiffs and other Negro-Americans, through such force, violence
and intimidation, from seeking the equal protection of the laws and
from enjoying the equal rights, privileges and immunities of
citizens under the laws of the United States and the State of
Mississippi, including but not limited to their rights to freedom
of speech, movement, association and assembly; their right to
petition their government for redress of their grievances; their
rights to be secure in their persons and their homes; and their
rights not to be enslaved nor deprived of life and liberty other
than by due process of law."
"6. Pursuant to their conspiracy, defendants drove their truck
into the path of Grady's automobile and blocked its passage over
the public road. Both defendants then forced Grady and said
plaintiffs to get out of Grady's automobile and prevented said
plaintiffs from escaping while defendant James
Page 403 U. S. 91
Calvin Breckenridge clubbed Grady with a blackjack, pipe or
other kind of club by pointing firearms at said plaintiffs and
uttering threats to kill and injure them if defendants' orders were
not obeyed, thereby terrorizing them to the utmost degree and
depriving them of their liberty."
"7. Pursuant to their conspiracy, defendants willfully,
intentionally, and maliciously menaced and assaulted each of the
said plaintiffs by pointing firearms and wielding deadly
blackjacks, pipes or other kind of clubs, while uttering threats to
kill and injure said plaintiffs, causing them to become stricken
with fear of immediate injury and death and to suffer extreme
terror, mental anguish and emotional and physical distress."
"8. Pursuant to defendants' conspiracy, defendant James Calvin
Breckenridge then willfully, intentionally and maliciously clubbed
each of said plaintiffs on and about the head, severely injuring
all of them, while both defendants continued to assault said
plaintiffs and prevent their escape by pointing their firearms at
them."
"
* * * *"
"12. By their conspiracy and acts pursuant thereto, the
defendants have willfully and maliciously, directly and indirectly,
intimidated and prevented the . . . plaintiffs . . . and other
Negro-Americans from enjoying and exercising their rights,
privileges and immunities as citizens of the United States and the
State of Mississippi, including but not limited to, their rights to
freedom of speech, movement, association and assembly; the right to
petition their government for redress of grievances; their right to
be secure in their person; their right not to be enslaved nor
deprived of life, liberty or property other than by due process of
law, and their
Page 403 U. S. 92
rights to travel the public highways without restraint in the
same terms as white citizens in Kemper County, Mississippi. . .
."
The jurisdiction of the federal court was invoked under the
language of Rev.Stat. § 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), which
provides:
"If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire or go
in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, for the
purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or
class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal
privileges and immunities under the laws [and] in any case of
conspiracy set forth in this section, if one or more persons
engaged therein do, or cause to be done, any act in furtherance of
the object of such conspiracy, whereby another is injured in his
person or property, or deprived of having and exercising any right
or privilege of a citizen of the United States, the party so
injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages,
occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more
of the conspirators."
The District Court dismissed the complaint for failure to state
a cause of action, relying on the authority of this Court's opinion
in
Collins v. Hardyman, 341 U. S. 651,
which in effect construed the above language of § 1985(3) as
reaching only conspiracies under color of state law. The Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment of dismissal.
410 F.2d 817. Judge Goldberg's thorough opinion for that court
expressed "serious doubts" as to the "continued vitality" of
Collins v. Hardyman, id. at 823, and stated that
"it would not surprise us if
Collins v. Hardyman were
disapproved and if § 1985(3) were held to embrace private
conspiracies to interfere with rights of national citizenship,"
id. at 825-826 (footnote omitted), but concluded that.
"[s]ince we
Page 403 U. S. 93
may not adopt what the Supreme Court has expressly rejected, we
obediently abide the mandate in
Collins,"
id. at
826-827. We granted certiorari, 397' U.S. 1074, to consider
questions going to the scope and constitutionality of 42 U.S.C. §
1985(3).
I
Collins v. Hardyman was decided 20 years ago. The
complaint in that case alleged that the plaintiffs were members of
a political club that had scheduled a meeting to adopt a resolution
opposing the Marshall Plan, and to send copies of the resolution to
appropriate federal officials; that the defendants conspired to
deprive the plaintiffs of their rights as citizens of the United
States peaceably to assemble and to equal privileges and immunities
under the laws of the United States; that, in furtherance of the
conspiracy, the defendants proceeded to the meeting site and, by
threats and violence, broke up the meeting, thus interfering with
the right of the plaintiffs to petition the Government for the
redress of grievances; and that the defendants did not interfere or
conspire to interfere with the meetings of other political groups
with whose opinions the defendants agreed. The Court held that this
complaint did not state a cause of action under § 1985(3):
[
Footnote 1]
"The complaint makes no claim that the conspiracy or the overt
acts involved any action by state officials, or that defendants
even pretended to act under color of state law. It is not shown
that defendants had or claimed any protection or immunity from the
law of the State, or that they, in fact, enjoyed such because of
any act or omission by state authorities."
341 U.S. at
341 U. S.
655.
"What we have here is not a conspiracy to affect in any way
these plaintiffs' equality of protection by
Page 403 U. S. 94
the law, or their equality of privileges and immunities under
the law. There is not the slightest allegation that defendants were
conscious of or trying to influence the law, or were endeavoring to
obstruct or interfere with it. . . . Such private discrimination is
not inequality before the law unless there is some manipulation of
the law or its agencies to give sanction or sanctuary for doing
so."
Id. at
341 U. S.
661.
The Court was careful to make clear that it was deciding no
constitutional question, but simply construing the language of the
statute, or more precisely, determining the applicability of the
statute to the facts alleged in the complaint: [
Footnote 2]
"We say nothing of the power of Congress to authorize such civil
actions as respondents have commenced or otherwise to redress such
grievances as they assert. We think that Congress has not, in the
narrow class of conspiracies defined by this statute, included the
conspiracy charged here. We therefore reach no constitutional
questions."
Id. at
341 U. S.
662.
Nonetheless, the Court made equally clear that the construction
it gave to the statute was influenced by the constitutional
problems that it thought would have otherwise been engendered:
"It is apparent that, if this complaint meets the requirements
of this Act, it raises constitutional problems of the first
magnitude that, in the light of history, are not without
difficulty. These would
Page 403 U. S. 95
include issues as to congressional power under and apart from
the Fourteenth Amendment, the reserved power of the States, the
content of rights derived from national, as distinguished from
state, citizenship, and the question of separability of the Act in
its application to those two classes of rights."
Id. at
341 U. S.
659.
Mr. Justice Burton filed a dissenting opinion, joined by MR.
JUSTICE BLACK and MR. JUSTICE Douglas. The dissenters thought
that
"the language of the statute refutes the suggestion that action
under color of state law is a necessary ingredient of the cause of
action which it recognizes."
Id. at
341 U. S. 663.
Further, the dissenters found no constitutional difficulty in
according to the statutory words their apparent meaning:
"Congress certainly has the power to create a federal cause of
action in favor of persons injured by private individuals through
the abridgment of federally created constitutional rights. It seems
to me that Congress has done just this in [§ 1985(3)]. This is not
inconsistent with the principle underlying the Fourteenth
Amendment. That amendment prohibits the respective states from
making laws abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of
the United States or denying to any person within the jurisdiction
of a state the equal protection of the laws. Cases holding that
those clauses are directed only at state action are not authority
for the contention that Congress may not pass laws supporting
rights which exist apart from the Fourteenth Amendment."
Id. at
341 U. S.
664.
II
Whether or not
Collins v. Hardyman was correctly
decided on its own facts is a question with which we need not here
be concerned. But it is clear, in the light of
Page 403 U. S. 96
the evolution of decisional law in the years that have passed
since that case was decided, that many of the constitutional
problems there perceived simply do not exist. Little reason
remains, therefore, not to accord to the words of the statute their
apparent meaning. That meaning is confirmed by judicial
construction of related laws, by the structural setting of §
1985(3) itself, and by its legislative history. And a fair reading
of the allegations of the complaint in this case clearly brings
them within this meaning of the statutory language. As so
construed, and as applied to this complaint, we have no doubt that
the statute was within the constitutional power of Congress to
enact.
III
We turn, then, to an examination of the meaning of § 1985(3). On
their face, the words of the statute fully encompass the conduct of
private persons. The provision speaks simply of "two or more
persons in any State or Territory" who "conspire or go in disguise
on the highway or on the premises of another." Going in disguise,
in particular, is in this context an activity so little associated
with official action and so commonly connected with private
marauders that this clause could almost never be applicable under
the artificially restrictive construction of
Collins. And
since the "going in disguise" aspect must include private action,
it is hard to see how the conspiracy aspect, joined by a
disjunctive, could be read to require the involvement of state
officers.
The provision continues, specifying the motivation required
"for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly,
any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws,
or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws."
This language is, of course, similar to that of § 1 of the
Fourteenth Amendment,
Page 403 U. S. 97
which, in terms, speaks only to the States, [
Footnote 3] and judicial thinking about what can
constitute an equal protection deprivation has, because of the
Amendment's wording, focused almost entirely upon identifying the
requisite "state action" and defining the offending forms of state
law and official conduct. A century of Fourteenth Amendment
adjudication has, in other words, made it understandably difficult
to conceive of what might constitute a deprivation of the equal
protection of the laws by private persons. Yet there is nothing
inherent in the phrase that requires the action working the
deprivation to come from the State.
See, e.g., United States v.
Harris, 106 U. S. 629,
106 U. S. 643.
Indeed, the failure to mention any such requisite can be viewed as
an important indication of congressional intent to speak in §
1985(3) of all deprivations of "equal protection of the laws" and
"equal privileges and immunities under the laws," whatever their
source.
The approach of this Court to other Reconstruction civil rights
statutes in the years since
Collins has been to "accord
[them] a sweep as broad as [their] language."
United States v.
Price, 383 U. S. 787,
383 U. S. 801;
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.
S. 409,
392 U. S. 437.
Moreover, very similar language in closely related statutes has
early and late received an interpretation quite inconsistent with
that given to § 1985(3) in
Collins. In construing the
exact criminal counterpart of § 1985(3), the Court in
United
States v. Harris, supra, observed that the statute was "not
limited to take effect only in case [of state action],"
id. at
106 U. S. 639,
but
"was framed to protect from invasion by private persons, the
equal privileges
Page 403 U. S. 98
and immunities under the laws, of all persons and classes of
persons,"
id. at
106 U. S. 637.
In
United States v. Williams, 341 U. S.
70, the Court considered the closest remaining criminal
analogue to § 1985(3), 18 U.S.C. § 241. [
Footnote 4] Mr. Justice Frankfurter's plurality
opinion, without contravention from the concurrence or dissent,
concluded that,
"if language is to carry any meaning at all, it must be clear
that the principal purpose of [§ 241], unlike [18 U.S.C. § 242],
was to reach private action, rather than officers of a State acting
under its authority. Men who 'go in disguise upon the public
highway, or upon the premises of another,' are not likely to be
acting in official capacities."
341 U.S. at
341 U. S. 76.
"Nothing in [the] terms [of § 241] indicates that color of State
law was to be relevant to prosecution under it."
Id. at
341 U. S. 78
(footnote omitted).
A like construction of § 1985(3) is reinforced when examination
is broadened to take in its companion statutory provisions. There
appear to be three possible forms for a state action limitation on
§ 1985(3) -- that there must be action under color of state law,
that there must be interference with or influence upon state
authorities, or that there must be a private conspiracy so massive
and effective that it supplants those authorities, and thus
satisfies the state action requirement. [
Footnote 5] The Congress
Page 403 U. S. 99
that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13, § 2 of
which is the parent of § 1985(3), dealt with each of these three
situations in explicit terms in other parts of the same Act. An
element of the cause of action established by the first section,
now 42 U.S.C. § 1983, is that the deprivation complained of must
have been inflicted under color of state law. [
Footnote 6] To read any such requirement into §
1985(3) would thus deprive that section of all independent effect.
As for interference with state officials, § 1985(3) itself contains
another clause dealing explicitly with that situation. [
Footnote 7] And § 3 of the 1871 Act
provided for military action at the command of the President should
massive private lawlessness render state authorities powerless to
protect the federal rights of classes of citizens, such a situation
being defined by the Act as constituting a state denial of equal
protection. 17 Stat. 14. Given the existence of these three
provisions, it is almost impossible to believe that Congress
intended, in the dissimilar language of the portion of § 1985(3)
now before us, simply to duplicate the coverage of one or more of
them.
The final area of inquiry into the meaning of § 1985(3) lies in
its legislative history. As originally introduced in the 42d
Congress, the section was solely a criminal provision outlawing
certain conspiratorial acts done with
Page 403 U. S. 100
intent "to do any act in violation of the rights, privileges, or
immunities of another person. . . ." Cong.Globe, 42d Cong., 1st
Sess., App. 68 (1871). Introducing the bill, the House sponsor,
Representative Shellabarger, stressed that
"the United States always has assumed to enforce, as against the
States,
and also persons, every one of the provisions of
the Constitution."
Id. at App. 69 (emphasis supplied). The enormous sweep
of the original language led to pressures for amendment, in the
course of which the present civil remedy was added. The
explanations of the added language centered entirely on the animus
or motivation that would be required, and there was no suggestion
whatever that liability would not be imposed for purely private
conspiracies. Representative Willard, draftsman of the limiting
amendment, said that his version
"provid[ed] that the essence of the crime should consist in the
intent to deprive a person of the equal protection of the laws and
of equal privileges and immunities under the laws; in other words,
that the Constitution secured, and was only intended to secure,
equality of rights and immunities, and that we could only punish by
United States laws a denial of that equality."
Id. at App. 188. Representative Shellabarger's
explanation of the amendment was very similar:
"The object of the amendment is. . . to confine the authority of
this law to the prevention of deprivations which shall attack the
equality of rights of American citizens; that any violation of the
right, the animus and effect of which is to strike down the
citizen, to the end that he may not enjoy equality of rights as
contrasted with his and other citizens' rights, shall be within the
scope of the remedies of this section."
Id. at 478. [
Footnote
8]
Page 403 U. S. 101
Other supporters of the bill were even more explicit in their
insistence upon coverage of private action. Shortly before the
amendment was introduced, Representative Shanks urged,
"I do not want to see [this measure] so amended that there shall
be taken out of it the frank assertion of the power of the national
Government to protect life, liberty, and property, irrespective of
the act of the State."
Id. at App. 141. At about the same time, Representative
Coburn asked:
"Shall we deal with individuals, or with the State as a State?
If we can deal with individuals, that is a less radical course, and
works less interference with local governments. . . . It would seem
more accordant with reason that the easier, more direct, and more
certain method of dealing with individual criminals was preferable,
and that the more thorough method of superseding State authority
should only be resorted to when the deprivation of rights and the
condition of outlawry was so general as to prevail in all quarters
in defiance of or by permission of the local government."
Id. at 459. After the amendment had been proposed in
the House, Senator Pool insisted in support of the bill during
Senate debate that "Congress must deal with individuals, not
States. It must punish the offender against the rights of the
citizen. . . ."
Id. at 608.
It is thus evident that all indicators -- text, companion
provisions, and legislative history -- point unwaveringly to §
1985(3)'s coverage of private conspiracies. That the statute was
meant to reach private action does not, however, mean that it was
intended to apply to all tortious, conspiratorial interferences
with the rights of others. For, though the supporters of the
legislation insisted on coverage of private conspiracies, they were
equally emphatic that they did not believe, in the words of
Representative Cook, "that Congress has a right to punish an
assault and battery when committed by two or more persons within a
State."
Page 403 U. S. 102
Id. at 485. The constitutional shoals that would lie in
the path of interpreting § 1985(3) as a general federal tort law
can be avoided by giving full effect to the congressional purpose
by requiring, as an element of the cause of action, the kind of
invidiously discriminatory motivation stressed by the sponsors of
the limiting amendment.
See the remarks of Representatives
Willard and Shellabarger, quoted
supra at
403 U. S. 100.
The language requiring intent to deprive of
equal
protection, or
equal privileges and immunities, means that
there must be some racial, or perhaps otherwise class-based,
invidiously discriminatory animus behind the conspirators' action.
[
Footnote 9] The conspiracy, in
other words, must aim at a deprivation of the equal enjoyment of
rights secured by the law to all. [
Footnote 10]
IV
We return to the petitioners' complaint to determine whether it
states a cause of action under § 1985(3) as so construed. To come
within the legislation a complaint must allege that the defendants
did(1) "conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the
premises of another" (2) "for the purpose of depriving, either
directly
Page 403 U. S. 103
or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal
protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under
the laws." It must then assert that one or more of the conspirators
(3) did, or caused to be done, "any act in furtherance of the
object of [the] conspiracy," whereby another was (4a) "injured in
his person or property" or (4b) "deprived of having and exercising
any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States."
The complaint fully alleges, with particulars, that the
respondents conspired to carry out the assault. It further asserts
that
"[t]heir purpose was to prevent [the] plaintiffs and other
Negro-Americans, through . . . force, violence and intimidation,
from seeking the equal protection of the laws and from enjoying the
equal rights, privileges and immunities of citizens under the laws
of the United States and the State of Mississippi,"
including a long list of enumerated rights such as free speech,
assembly, association, and movement. The complaint further alleges
that the respondents were "acting under a mistaken belief that R.
G. Grady was a worker for Civil Rights for Negroes." These
allegations clearly support the requisite animus to deprive the
petitioners of the equal enjoyment of legal rights because of their
race. The claims of detention, threats, and battery amply satisfy
the requirement of acts done in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Finally, the petitioners -- whether or not the nonparty Grady was
the main or only target of the conspiracy -- allege personal injury
resulting from those acts. The complaint, then, states a cause of
action under § 1985(3). Indeed, the conduct here alleged lies so
close to the core of the coverage intended by Congress that it is
hard to conceive of wholly private conduct that would come within
the statute if this does not. We must, accordingly, consider
whether Congress had constitutional power to enact a statute that
imposes liability under federal law for the conduct alleged in this
complaint.
Page 403 U. S. 104
The constitutionality of § 1985(3) might once have appeared to
have been settled adversely by
United States v. Harris,
106 U. S. 629, and
Baldwin v. Franks, 120 U. S. 678,
which held unconstitutional its criminal counterpart, then § 5519
of the Revised Statutes. [
Footnote 11] The Court in those cases, however, followed
a severability rule that required invalidation of an entire statute
if any part of it was unconstitutionally overbroad, unless its
different parts could be read as wholly independent provisions.
E.g., Baldwin v. Franks, supra, at
120 U. S. 685.
This Court has long since firmly rejected that rule in such cases
as
United States v. Raines, 362 U. S.
17,
362 U. S. 20-24.
Consequently, we need not find the language of § 1985(3) now before
us constitutional in all its possible applications in order to
uphold its facial constitutionality and its application to the
complaint in this case.
That § 1985(3) reaches private conspiracies to deprive others of
legal rights can, of itself, cause no doubts of its
constitutionality. It has long been settled that 18 U.S.C. § 241, a
criminal statute of far broader phrasing (
see n 4,
supra), reaches wholly
private conspiracies and is constitutional.
E.g., In re
Quarles, 158 U. S. 532;
Loan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263,
144 U. S.
293-295;
United States v. Waddell, 112 U. S.
76,
112 U. S. 77-81;
Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651.
See generally Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S.
78,
211 U. S. 97-98.
Our inquiry, therefore, need go only to identifying a source of
congressional power to reach the private conspiracy alleged by the
complaint in this case.
A
Even as it struck down Rev.Stat. § 5519 in
United States v.
Harris, the Court indicated that parts of its coverage would,
if severable, be constitutional under the
Page 403 U. S. 105
Thirteenth Amendment. 106 U.S. at
106 U. S.
640-641. And surely there has never been any doubt of
the power of Congress to impose liability on private persons under
§ 2 of that amendment,
"for the amendment is not a mere prohibition of State laws
establishing or upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that
slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist in any part of the
United States."
Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3,
109 U. S. 20.
See also id. at
109 U. S. 23;
Clyatt v. United States, 197 U. S. 207,
197 U. S. 216,
197 U. S. 218;
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. at
392 U. S.
437-440. Not only may Congress impose such liability,
but the varieties of private conduct that it may make criminally
punishable or civilly remediable extend far beyond the actual
imposition of slavery or involuntary servitude. By the Thirteenth
Amendment, we committed ourselves as a Nation to the proposition
that the former slaves and their descendants should be forever
free. To keep that promise,
"Congress has the power under the Thirteenth Amendment
rationally to determine what are the badges and the incidents of
slavery, and the authority to translate that determination into
effective legislation."
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., supra, at
392 U. S. 440.
We can only conclude that Congress was wholly within its powers
under § 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment in creating a statutory cause
of action for Negro citizens who have been the victims of
conspiratorial, racially discriminatory private action aimed at
depriving them of the basic rights that the law secures to all free
men.
B
Our cases have firmly established that the right of interstate
travel is constitutionally protected, does not necessarily rest on
the Fourteenth Amendment, and is assertable against private, as
well as governmental, interference.
Shapiro v. Thompson,
394 U. S. 618,
394 U. S.
629-631;
id. at
394 U. S.
642-644 (concurring opinion);
United
States
Page 403 U. S. 106
v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745,
383 U. S.
757-760 and n. 17;
Twining v. New Jersey,
211 U. S. 78,
211 U. S. 97;
Slaughter-House
Cases, 16 Wall. 36,
83 U. S. 79-80;
Crandall v.
Nevada, 6 Wall. 35,
73 U. S. 44,
73 U. S. 48-49;
Passenger
Cases, 7 How. 283,
48 U. S. 492
(Taney, C.J., dissenting). The "right to pass freely from State to
State" has been explicitly recognized as "among the rights and
privileges of National citizenship."
Twining v. New Jersey,
supra, at
211 U. S. 97.
That right, like other rights of national citizenship, is within
the power of Congress to protect by appropriate legislation.
E.g., United States v. Guest, supra, at
383 U. S. 759;
United States v. Classic, 313 U.
S. 299,
313 U. S.
314-315;
Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.
S. 651;
Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.
S. 112,
400 U. S.
285-287 (concurring and dissenting opinion).
The complaint in this case alleged that the petitioner "were
traveling upon the federal, state and local highways in and about"
DeKalb, Kemper County, Mississippi. Kemper County is on the
Mississippi-Alabama border. One of the results of the conspiracy,
according to the complaint, was to prevent the petitioners and
other Negroes from exercising their "rights to travel the public
highways without restraint in the same terms as white citizens in
Kemper County, Mississippi." Finally, the conspiracy was alleged to
have been inspired by the respondents' erroneous belief that Grady,
a Tennessean, was a worker for Negro civil rights. Under these
allegations, it is open to the petitioners to prove at trial that
they had been engaging in interstate travel or intended to do so,
that their federal right to travel interstate was one of the rights
meant to be discriminatorily impaired by the conspiracy, that the
conspirators intended to drive out-of-state civil rights workers
from the State, or that they meant to deter the petitioners from
associating with such persons. This and other evidence could make
it clear that the petitioners had suffered from conduct that
Congress may reach under its power to protect the right of
interstate travel.
Page 403 U. S. 107
C
In identifying these two constitutional sources of congressional
power, we do not imply the absence of any other. More specifically,
the allegations of the complaint in this case have not required
consideration of the scope of the power of Congress under § 5 of
the Fourteenth Amendment. [
Footnote 12] By the same token, since the allegations of
the complaint bring this cause of action so close to the
constitutionally authorized core of the statute, there has been no
occasion here to trace out its constitutionally permissible
periphery.
The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded to the United
States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, concurring.
I agree with the Court's opinion, except that I find it
unnecessary to rely on the "right of interstate travel" as a
premise for justifying federal jurisdiction under § 1985(3). With
that reservation, I join the opinion and judgment of the Court.
[
Footnote 1]
The statute was then 8 U.S.C. § 47(3) (1946 ed.).
[
Footnote 2]
"We do not say that no conspiracy by private individuals could
be of such magnitude and effect as to work a deprivation of equal
protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under
laws. . . . But here, nothing of that sort appears. We have a case
of a lawless political brawl, precipitated by a handful of white
citizens against other white citizens."
341 U.S. at
341 U. S.
662.
[
Footnote 3]
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
[
Footnote 4]
"If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten,
or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any
right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of
the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same;
or"
"If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the
premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free
exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured -- "
"They shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more
than ten years, or both."
The penalty section was amended in 1968.
See 18 U.S.C.
241 (1964 ed., Supp. V).
[
Footnote 5]
This last was suggested in
Collins v. Hardyman.
See n 2,
supra.
[
Footnote 6]
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance,
regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects,
or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or
other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of
any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution
and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law,
suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
[
Footnote 7]
"If two or more persons in any State or Territory conspire or go
in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another . . . for
the purpose of preventing or hindering the constituted authorities
of any State or Territory from giving or securing to all persons
within such State or Territory the equal protection of the laws. .
. ."
[
Footnote 8]
The conspiracy and disguise language of what finally became §
1985(3) appears to have been borrowed from the parent of 18 U.S.C.
§ 241.
See Cong.Globe, 41st Cong., 2d Sess., 3611-3613
(1870).
[
Footnote 9]
We need not decide, given the facts of this case, whether a
conspiracy motivated by invidiously discriminatory intent other
than racial bias would be actionable under the portion of § 1985(3)
before us.
Cf. Cong.Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 567
(1871) (remarks of Sen. Edmunds).
[
Footnote 10]
The motivation requirement introduced by the word "equal" into
the portion of § 1985(3) before us must not be confused with the
test of "specific intent to deprive a person of a federal right
made definite by decision or other rule of law" articulated by the
plurality opinion in
Screws v. United States, 325 U. S.
91,
325 U. S. 103,
for prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. § 242. Section 1985(3), unlike §
242, contains no specific requirement of "willfulness."
Cf.
Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167,
365 U. S. 187.
The motivation aspect of § 1985(3) focuses not on
scienter
in relation to deprivation of rights but on invidiously
discriminatory animus.
[
Footnote 11]
Rev.Stat. § 5519 was repealed in 1909. 35 Stat. 1154.
[
Footnote 12]
See Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.
S. 641;
Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.
S. 112,
400 U. S. 135
(opinion of DOUGLAS, J.), 229 (opinion of BRENNAN, WHITE, and
MARSHALL, JJ.);
United States v. Guest, 383 U.
S. 745,
383 U. S. 761
(Clark, J., concurring),
383 U. S. 774
(BRENNAN, J., concurring and dissenting).