Plessy vs Ferguson.

Plessy VS. Ferguson

• Facts

In 1891 the Louisiana Law stated that all railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in Louisiana, 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… 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.

On June 7th 1892, Homer Plessy who is one eight black, sat down in a “white only coach” in East Louisiana Railway.

• Issues

According to the Law the Louisiana, Homer Plesy violated the law and he was arrested, plus he challenged the Law claiming that it violated his fourteen amendment rights.

• Holding

This were the most important points on the debate of the Supreme Court of the time: Justice Henry Brown stated that although the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution was designed to enforce the equality between the races, it was not intended to abolish distinctions based on color, or to enforce a commingling of the races in a way unsatisfactory to either. Laws requiring the separation of the races

do not imply the inferiority of either. If the law “stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority,” it is because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. Therefore, the statute constitutes a valid exercise of the States’ police powers.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution does, however, require that the exercise of a State’s police powers be reasonable. Laws enacted in good faith, for the promotion of the public good and not for the annoyance or oppression of another race are reasonable. As such, the statute was reasonable.

Justice John Harlan said that everyone knows that the purpose of the statute was to exclude the colored people from coaches occupied by whites. The Constitution is color-blind. It neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

• Rule of Law

I think that the arguments of the Justice Harlan are pretty reasonable of what the rule of law must be in this case. All persons, white or black, shall stand equal before the law. There is no superior dominant ruling class of citizens. The constitution is color-blind.

• Reasoning

Some of the justices of the Supreme Court adopted the idea of the “Separate but equal” Laws, so there will be no conflict with the fourteen amendment rights, because it’s not the same as “racism”. But segregation laws, separating people on basis of race is, indeed, the same thing as discrimination.

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