United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), was an important United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Bill of Rights did not apply to private actors or to state governments despite the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. It reversed criminal convictions for the civil rights violations committed in aid of anti-reconstruction murders. Decided during the Reconstruction Era, the case represented a major blow to federal efforts to protect the civil rights of African Americans.