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22 Hague vs. Coumittce for radustria? Organization. tioners have prevented respondents from halding meetings and (is- seminating information whether for the organization of labor unions or for any other lawful purpose. If it be the part of wisdom to avoid unueressary decision of enn- stitutional questions, it would seem to be equally so to avoid the unnecessary creation of novel constitutional doctrine, inadequately supported by the record, in order to attain an end easily ane cer- tainly reached by following the beaten paths of constitutional ce- cision. ‘ The right to maintain the present suit is conferred upon the in- dividual respondents by the dne process clause and Acts rol Congress, regardless of their citizenship and of the amount in controversy. Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of April 29, 1871, 17 Stat. 13, provided that “‘any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance of any State, shall sub- ject, or cause to be anbjected, any perron within the jurisdic- tion of the United States to the deprivation of any rights, privi- leges, or immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States, shall be liable to the party injrred in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress’’. And it directed that such proceedings should be prosecuted in the several district or cirenit courts of the United States. The right of action given by this section was later specifically limited to ‘‘any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof"’, and was extended to include rights, privileges and im- munities secured by the laws of the United States as well as by the Constitution. As thus modified the provision was continued as § 1979 of the Revised Statutes and now constitutes § 43 of Title 8 of the United States Cate. Jt will be observed that the cause of action, given by the section in its original as well as its final form, extends broadly to deprivation by state action of the Tights, privi- leges and immunities secured to persons by the Constitution, It thus includes the Fourteenth Amendment and such privileges and immunities a8 are secured by the due process and equal protection clauses, as well as by the privileges and immmnitica clause of that Amendment, It will also be observed that they are those rights secured to persons, whether citizens of the United States or not, to whom the Amendment in terms extends the benefit of the due pra- ess and equal protection clauses. — — —_————.__—__- Hague vs. Committce for Industrial Organization, 23 Following the decision of the Slaughter-House Cases and before the later expansion by judicial deeision of the eontent of the due process and equal protection clauses, there was jittle scope for the operation of this statute under the Fonrteenth Amendment. The observation of tbe Court in (nifed States v. Crutkshank, 92 U.S. 542, 551, that the right of assembly was not secured against state action by the Constitution, must L> attributed to the decision in the Slaughter-Huwse Cases (hat only privileges and immunities peculiar to United States citizenship were secured by the privileges and im- munities clause, and to the further fact that at that time it had not heen decided that the right was one protected by the due process clause, The argument that the phrase in the statute ‘‘seeured by the Constitution’? refers to rights ‘‘ereated’’, rather than ‘' pro- tected” by it, is not persuasive. The preamble of the Constitution, proclaiming the establishment of the Constitution in order to ‘‘se- cure the Blessings of Liherty'’, uses the werd ‘‘seeure’’ in the sense of ‘protect’ or ‘‘make certain’. That the phrase was used in this sense in the statute now under consideration waa recognized in Carter v. Greenhow, 114 U, 8. 317, 322, where it was held as a mat- ter of pleading that the partienlar canse of action set Up in the plaintiff's pleading was in contraet and was not to redress depri- vation of the “right secured to him by that clause of the Consti- tution’? [the contract clause], to which he had ‘‘chosen not to resort'’. See, as to other rights protected by the Constitution and hence secured by it, brought within the provisions of RB. 5. § 5508, Logan ¥, United States, 44 US. 263; fa re Guyuarles and Butler, 158 U.S. 482; United States v. Mostey, 238 U.S. 383. Since freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are rights se- cured to persons by the due process clause, all of the mdividual respondents are plainly authorized by §1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 to maintain the present suit in equity to restrain infringe- ment of their rights. As to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is a corporation, it cannot be said to be deprived of the civil rights of freedom ef speech and of assembly, for the liberty guar- anteed by the due process ciause ia the liberty of natural, not arti- ficial, persons. Northucstern Life Insurance (fo, v. Riggs, 203 U. 8. 243, 05%: Western Purf Ass'n v. Greenberg, 204 U. 8. 359, 363. The question remains whether there was jurisdiction in the dis- triet court to entertain the suit although the matter in controversy eannot he shown to execed $3,000 in value because the asserted