Five justices formed the majority and joined an opinion written by Justice Samuel Freeman Miller. The aggrieved New Orleans butchers had claimed that the state-created monopoly created involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment, deprived them of property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, denied them equal protection in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, and abridged their privileges and immunities as citizens in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause. But the Court's opinion interpreted the Amendments narrowly and rejected the butchers' arguments.