http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1879/ U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, presented by The Oyez Project (www.oyez.org) en-us <p>Did Mississippi violate the Contract Clause by repealing the Society's grant?</p><p>A unanimous Court found that the Mississippi classification of lotteries as outlawed acts was valid. The State legislature do not have the power to bind the decisions of the people and future legislatures. The Court stated that no legislation had the authority to bargain away the public health and morals. The Court viewed the lottery as a vice that threatened the public health and morals. The contracts protected in the Constitution are property rights, not governmental rights. Therefore, one can only obtain temporary suspension of the governmental rights (in this case, the right to outlaw actions) in a charter which can be revoked by the will of the people.</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1879/1879_2/ <p>Does the state law barring blacks from jury service violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?</p><p>Yes. Strong, writing for the majority, declared that to deny citizen participation in the administration of justice solely on racial grounds "is practically a brand upon them, affixed by law; an assertion of their inferiority, and a stimulant to that race prejudice which is an impediment to securing to individuals of the race that equal justice which the law aims to secure to all others."</p> http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1879/1879_0/