The language "The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation" is used, with slight variations, in Amendments XIII, XIV, XV, XIX, XXIII, XXIV, and XXVI.
The variations in the pertinent language are as follows: These provisions made their first appearance in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which were adopted during the Reconstruction period primarily to abolish slavery and protect the rights of the newly emancipated African-Americans.
This ruling has not been overturned, although in modern times, similar civil rights legislation has been upheld under Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One, Section 8 of the Constitution.
In the Katzenbach v. Morgan case, decided in 1966, the Supreme Court concluded that Congress can forbid practices that are not themselves unconstitutional, if the law is aimed at preventing or remedying constitutional violations.
In enacting RFRA, Congress had sought to overturn the 1988 Supreme Court decision in Employment Division v. Smith, which had held that the Constitution does not require states to recognize religious exemptions to laws of general applicability.