The U.S. Supreme Court, 1894
During the 1890s, the Supreme Court struck down a number of pieces of progressive legislation, including a progressive federal income tax that had been signed into law by Congress and the president. In the Knight Sugar Case (United States v. E. C. Knight Co.), the Court ruled that the federal government had limited power over interstate commerce when a company did most of its manufacturing in a single state. In another 1894 decision, In re Debs, manufacturers were allowed free use of injunctions to shut down strikes. Two years later, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court gave national sanction to racial segregation. In the front row, from left to right, are justices Horace Gray, Stephen J. Field, Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, John Marshall Harlan I, and David J. Brewer. Standing in the back row, left to right, are justices Howell Jackson, Henry B. Brown, George Shiras, and Edward Douglas White. C. M. Bell, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.