the supreme court's ruling in the civil rights cases held that
The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), were a group of five US Supreme Court constitutional law cases. Against the famous dissent of Justice Harlan, a majority held the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional, because Congress lacked authority to regulate private affairs under the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the Thirteenth Amendment "merely abolishes slavery". The Civil Rights Act of 1875 had banned race discrimination in access to services offered to the public. The decision was effectively reversed in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court from 1937, and finally by legislation under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.