the slaughterhouse cases of 1873 are significant because the supreme court
Slaughter-House Cases The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873), was the first United States Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment which had recently been enacted. It was a pivotal case in early civil rights law and held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the privileges or immunities of citizenship of the United States, not privileges and immunities of citizenship of a state. However, as the federal rights of citizenship were then few, such as the right to travel between states and to use navigable rivers; the amendment did not protect the far broader range of rights covered by state citizenship. In effect, the amendment was interpreted to convey limited protection pertinent to a small minority of rights.
McDonald v. City of Chicago Writing for the majority, Justice Alito held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller.[22] Writing a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas reached the same conclusion regarding the incorporation issue on different grounds: Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[23] The majority decision also reaffirmed that certain firearms restrictions mentioned in District of Columbia v. Heller are assumed permissible and not directly dealt with in this case.[24] Such restrictions include those to "prohibit...the possession of firearms by felons or mentally ill" and "laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms".[24]