Star Parker: Reflections on Martin Luther King

"Civil rights movement" trumped by the Welfare State? Actually, the original civil rights movement was ended by the Supreme Court's refusal to enforce the "privileges or immunities" clause of the 14th amendment. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." Supposedly made a part of the Constitution in 1868, this clause was shamelessly declared a dead letter by the Supreme Court (in a 5-4 decision) in the Slaughter-House Cases rendered in 1870. Suffice it to state that the "police powers" of the States have been enormously expanded since that date -- in spite of an explicit bar to their expansion.