In the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) the dissenting opinion written by Justice Stephen Field argued that the “privileges and immunities designated...belong to the citizens of all free governments” and that fundamental rights and liberties are protected from government interference (H243). Field’s interpretation of “no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens” was to guarantee individual and corporate rights from intrusion of state power (A14.1). While Justice Field was of the dissenting opinion, his interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses would become the judicial precedent adopted in many majority opinions in the following decades and would hinder many states’ initiatives to pass progressive legislation to improve the workplace and livelihoods of workers and