In the Slaughterhouse cases Carpenter represented the Crescent City Livestock Landing and Slaughterhouse Company, which had been granted a monopoly on all slaughterhouse business in New Orleans by the carpetbag state legislature of Louisiana in 1869. Butchers and cattle dealers thrown out of work by the law obtained an injunction from a district court, claiming they had been denied equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and deprived of property under the due process clause. Making a plea for states' rights, Carpenter contended that the amendment had been intended solely to elevate African Americans and had no bearing on economic statutes passed by a state. He also warned of too many powers being centralized in the federal government. The court concurred in Carpenter's narrowing of the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment.