Plessy v. Ferguson
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This
was the landmark Supreme Court decision that in 1896 ruled the doctrine
"separate but equal" constitutional under the 14th Amendment,
thus giving Constitutional sanction to a large number of segregation
laws. Plessy argued that a porter who had evicted him from the white
section of a train had violated his rights under the 14th Amendment.
The Court, under Chief Justice Fuller, ruled 8 to 1 against Plessy.
Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the Court. Justice Harlan wrote
the lone dissenting opinion.
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Movement Chronology
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| Court | Justice Brown, delivering the Court opinion: | |
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1.1
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This case turns upon the constitutionality
of an act of the General Assembly of the State of Louisiana, passed
in 1890, providing for separate railway carriages for the white and
colored races...
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1.2
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The constitutionality of this act is
attacked upon the ground that it conflicts both with the Thirteenth
Amendment of the Constitution, abolishing slavery, and the Fourteenth
Amendment, which prohibits certain restrictive legislation on the part
of the States.
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2.1
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1.
That it does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished
slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime,
is too clear for argument...
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2.2-3
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The
proper construction of the 14th amendment was first called to the attention
of this court in the Slaughter-house cases, ... which involved, however,
not a question of race, but one of exclusive privileges. The case did
not call for any expression of opinion as to the exact rights it was
intended to secure to the colored race, but it was said generally that
its main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the negro; to give
definitions of citizenship of the United States and of the States, and
to protect from the hostile legislation of the States the privileges
and immunities of citizens of the United States, as distinguished from
those of citizens of the States.
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2.4-6
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The
object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality
of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could
not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or
to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling
of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting,
and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable
to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority
of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally,
recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the
exercise of their police power. The most common instance of this is
connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored
children, which has been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative
power even by courts of States where the political rights of the colored
race have been longest and most earnestly enforced...
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2.7-9
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So
far, then, as a conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned,
the case reduces itself to the question whether the statute of Louisiana
is a reasonable regulation, and with respect to this there must necessarily
be a large discretion on the part of the legislature. In determining
the question of reasonableness it is at liberty to act with reference
to the established usages, customs and traditions of the people, and
with a view to the promotion of their comfort, and the preservation
of the public peace and good order. Gauged by this standard, we cannot
say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the
two races in public conveyances is unreasonable, or more obnoxious to
the Fourteenth Amendment than the acts of Congress requiring separate
schools for colored children in the District of Columbia, the constitutionality
of which does not seem to have been questioned, or the corresponding
acts of state legislatures.
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3.1
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We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. The argument necessarily assumes that if, as has been more than once the case, and is not unlikely to be so again, the colored race should become the dominant power in the state legislature, and should enact a law in precisely similar terms, it would thereby relegate the white race to an inferior position. We imagine that the white race, at least, would not acquiesce in this assumption. The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other's merits and a voluntary consent of individuals...Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane... |
doctrine
of "separate but equal"
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Justice
Harlan, dissenting.
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1.1
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While
there may be in Louisiana persons of different races who are not citizens
of the United States, the words in the act, "white and colored races,"
necessarily include all citizens of the United States of both races
residing in that State. So that we have before us a state enactment
that compels, under penalties, the separation of the two races in railroad
passenger coaches, and makes it a crime for a citizen of either race
to enter a coach that has been assigned to citizens of the other race...
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2.1
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In
respect of civil rights, common to all citizens, the Constitution of
the United States does not, I think, permit any public authority to
know the race of those entitled to be protected in the enjoyment of
such rights. Every true man has pride of race, and under appropriate
circumstances when the rights of others, his equals before the law,
are not to be affected, it is his privilege to express such pride and
to take such action based upon it as to him seems proper. But I deny
that any legislative body or judicial tribunal may have regard to the
race of citizens when the civil rights of those citizens are not involved.
Indeed, such legislation, as that here in question, is inconsistent
not only with that equality of rights which pertains to citizenship,
National and State, but with the personal liberty enjoyed by every one
within the United States...
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| The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time, if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty. But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. It is, therefore, to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a State to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race. | ||
| In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott case...The present decision, it may well be apprehended, will not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal and irritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will encourage the belief that it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people of the United States had in view when they adopted the recent amendments of the Constitution, by one of which the blacks of this country were made citizens of the United States and of the States in which they respectively reside, and whose privileges and immunities, as citizens, the States are forbidden to abridge. Sixty millions of whites are in no danger from the presence here of eight millions of blacks. The destinies of the two races, in this country, are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law. What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments, which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens? That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana... | ||
| If evils will result from the commingling of the two races upon public highways established for the benefit of all, they will be infinitely less than those that will surely come from state legislation regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race. We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state of the law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow-citizens, our equals before the law... | ||
| I am of opinion that the statute of Louisiana is inconsistent with the personal liberty of citizens, white and black, in that State, and hostile to both the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States. If laws of like character should be enacted in the several States of the Union, the effect would be in the highest degree mischievous. Slavery, as an institution tolerated by law would, it is true, have disappeared from our country, but there would remain a power in the States, by sinister legislation, to interfere with the full enjoyment of the blessings of freedom; to regulate civil rights, common to all citizens upon the basis of race; and to place in a condition of legal inferiority a large body of American citizens, now constituting a part of the political community called the People of the United States, for whom, and by whom through representatives, our government is administered. | ||
Source: 163 U.S. 537 (1896). Online Source: Civnet. 02/07/99 URL: http://www.civnet.org/resoures/teach/basic/part6/33.htm