Plessy v Ferguson 163 U.S. 537 (1896) civil rights

In many Southern states public transportation & public places divided their spaces by color - claiming "separate but equal" was Constitutional.

Plessy v Ferguson 163 U.S. 537 (1896) 

Decided May 18, 1896

Significance: Sanctioned segregation of races by upholding the doctrine of “separate but equal.”

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     Plessy v Ferguson is an important case because it demonstrates the life changing power of a few over many - and how destructive this power can be if not challenged until stopped.   It also demonstrates the  normalized thinking of the time - even at the highest levels of government.  

The words & spirit of the U.S. Constitution eventually straightened out those who wanted to perpetuate hate.

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Holding: On May 18, 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson ruled that separate-but-equal facilities were constitutional.  The ruling provided legal justification for states to segregate by color, on trains and buses, and in public facilities such as hotels, theaters, and schools. 

The Plessy v. Ferguson decision upheld the principle of racial segregation, which was finally overturned in 1954.

Summary of Facts: 

That petitioner was a citizen of the United States and a resident of the state of Louisiana, of mixed descent, in the proportion of seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood; that the mixture of colored blood was not discernible in him, and that he was entitled to every recognition, right, privilege, and immunity secured to the citizens of the United States of the white race by its constitution and laws; 

that on June 7, 1892, he engaged and paid for a first-class passage on the East Louisiana Railway, from New Orleans to Covington . . . and thereupon entered a passenger train, and took possession of a vacant seat in a coach where passengers of the white race were accommodated; 

Mr. Plessy was required by the conductor, under penalty of ejection from said train and imprisonment, to vacate said coach, and occupy another seat, in a coach assigned for persons not of the white race, and for no other reason than that petitioner was of the colored race; that, upon Plessy's (petitioner) refusal to comply with such order, he was, with the aid of a police officer, forcibly ejected from said coach, and hurried off to, and imprisoned in, the parish jail of New Orleans, and there held to answer a charge made by such officer to the effect that he was guilty of having criminally violated an act of the general assembly of the state.

Plessy appealed the decision 

Supreme Court Justice Brown wrote the majority opinion claiming the Fourteenth Amendment was only meant to force equality under the federal law, but not the states. 

Brown said in part, “[The Fourteenth 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 163.U.S. 537 (1896).” 

Mr. Justice HARLAN dissenting.

Dissenting opinion excerpts:

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.

But it seems that we have yet, in some of the states, a dominant race,—a superior class of citizens,—which assumes to regulate the enjoyment of civil rights, common to all citizens, upon the basis of race.  

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.

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The Supreme Court overruled the Plessy decision in 

Brown v. the Board of Education on May 17, 1954.

See case details on the Right >

& dissent below. 

Vocabulary

* petition for writs of prohibition – A writ is an old English term - refers to an official written order by court/legal authority – This writing directs a lower court not to take action or exercise jurisdiction in a particular case.

*certiorari– (Latin term) American Common Law - translation: “to be more fully informed” – A written demand from a higher court ordering a lower court to provide all records regarding the case at hand. The purpose is for the higher court to review the lower court’s decision.

*Plaintiff in error – the party who appeals the decision of a lower court 

*demurrer – (Anglo-French term) A written response to legally filed complaint which pleads to the court to dismiss the case, stating that even if the facts alleged are true, there is no legal basis – no grounds for the lawsuit.

* exigency – sudden, urgent need or necessity

*enjoined – to stop an action by a court injunction i.e. legal order.

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The following excerpts are taken directly from the court documents, only bold, italic or underline added for emphasis of main points.

 * See above vocabulary for definitions.

May 18, 1896.

This was a petition for writs of prohibition* and certiorari* originally filed in the supreme court of the state by Plessy, the plaintiff in error*, against the Hon. John H. Ferguson, judge of the criminal district court for the parish of Orleans, and setting forth, in substance, the following facts:

That petitioner was a citizen of the United States and a resident of the state of Louisiana, of mixed descent, in the proportion of seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood; that the mixture of colored blood was not discernible in him, and that he was entitled to every recognition, right, privilege, and immunity secured to the citizens of the United States of the white race by its constitution and laws; 

that on June 7, 1892, he engaged and paid for a first-class passage on the East Louisiana Railway, from New Orleans to Covington . . . and thereupon entered a passenger train, and took possession of a vacant seat in a coach where passengers of the white race were accommodated; 

that such railroad company was incorporated by the laws of Louisiana as a common carrier, and was not authorized to distinguish between citizens according to their race, but, notwithstanding this, petitioner was required by the conductor, under penalty of ejection from said train and imprisonment, to vacate said coach, and occupy another seat, in a coach assigned by said company for persons not of the white race, and for no other reason than that petitioner was of the colored race; 

that, upon petitioner's refusal to comply with such order, he was, with the aid of a police officer, forcibly ejected from said coach, and hurried off to, and imprisoned in, the parish jail of New Orleans, and there held to answer a charge made by such officer to the effect that he was guilty of having criminally violated an act of the general assembly of the state, approved July 10, 1890 . . .

The petitioner was subsequently brought before the recorder of the city for preliminary examination, and committed for trial to the criminal district court for the parish of Orleans, where an information was filed against him in the matter above set forth, for a violation of the above act, which act the petitioner affirmed to be null and void, because in conflict with the constitution of the United States; 

that petitioner interposed a plea to such information, based upon the unconstitutionality of the act of the general assembly, to which the district attorney, on behalf of the state, filed a demurrer*; that, upon issue being joined upon such demurrer and plea, the court sustained the demurrer, overruled the plea, and ordered petitioner to plead over to the facts set forth in the information, and that, unless the judge of the said court be enjoined* by a writ of prohibition* from further proceeding in such case, the court will proceed to fine and sentence petitioner to imprisonment, and thus deprive him of his constitutional rights set forth in his said plea, notwithstanding the unconstitutionality of the act under which he was being prosecuted; 

that no appeal lay from such sentence, and petitioner was without relief or remedy except by writs of prohibition and certiorari. . .

Mr. Justice BROWN, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.

1

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. Acts 1890, No. 111, p. 152.

2

The first section of the statute enacts 'that all railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in this state, shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white, and colored races, by providing two or more passenger coaches for each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger coaches by a partition so as to secure separate accommodations: provided, that this section shall not be construed to apply to street railroads. No person or persons shall be permitted to occupy seats in coaches, other than the ones assigned to them, on account of the race they belong to.'

3

By the second section it was enacted 'that the officers of such passenger trains shall have power and are hereby required to assign each passenger to the coach or compartment used for the race to which such passenger belongs; any passenger insisting on going into a coach or compartment to which by race he does not belong, shall be liable to a fine of twenty-five dollars, or in lieu thereof to imprisonment for a period of not more than twenty days in the parish prison . . .

(4-6 not included here – See full text attached).

7

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.

8

That it does not conflict with the thirteenth amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except § a punishment for crime, is too clear for argument. 

Slavery implies involuntary servitude,—a state of bondage; the ownership of mankind as a chattel, or, at least, the control of the labor and services of one man for the benefit of another, and the absence of a legal right to the disposal of his own person, property, and services. 

This amendment was said in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, to have been intended primarily to abolish slavery, as it had been previously known in this country, and that it equally forbade Mexican peonage or the Chinese coolie trade, when they amounted to slavery or involuntary servitude, and that the use of the word 'servitude' was intended to prohibit the use of all forms of involuntary slavery, of whatever class or name. 

It was intimated, however, in that case, that this amendment was regarded by the statesmen of that day as insufficient to protect the colored race from certain laws which had been enacted in the Southern states, imposing upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens, and curtailing their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value; and that the fourteenth amendment was devised to meet this exigency.*

(9 not included here – See full text link)

10

A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races—a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color—has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or re-establish a state of involuntary servitude. 

Indeed, we do not understand that the thirteenth amendment is strenuously relied upon by the plaintiff in error in this connection.

11

2. By the fourteenth amendment, all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are made citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside; and the states are forbidden from making or enforcing any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or deny to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

12

The proper construction of this amendment was first called to the attention of this court in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 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.

13

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 instanceof this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored children, which have 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.

(Full text of case not included herein - See link below)

Mr. Justice HARLAN dissenting.

Dissenting opinion excerpt:

I am of opinion that the state 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. 

Such a system is inconsistent with the guaranty given by the constitution to each state of a republican form of government, and may be stricken down by congressional action, or by the courts in the discharge of their solemn duty to maintain the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

53

For the reason stated, I am constrained to withhold my assent from the opinion and judgment of the majority.

Separate black and white drinking fountains perpetuated racism. Racism - the idea that one group of humans is superior.

Plessy v Ferguson demonstrates the life changing power of a few over many - and how destructive this power can be if not challenged until stopped.   It also demonstrates the normalized thinking of the time - even at the highest levels of government.  

The words & spirit of the U.S. Constitution eventually straightened out those who wanted to perpetuate hate.  Hate against any group of people is dangerous, violent and should not be tolerated and normalized.

Below is a link to Library of Congress where you can read the entire case.