PLESSY VS FERGUSSON,

Plessy vs Fergusson,

Plessy vs Fergusson,

The Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson arose due to the introduction of the so-called, “Jim Crow” laws, which required that the railway provide separate, but equal accommodations for whites and people of the “colored” races. This kind of law was first introduced in Florida in 1879, but was soon adopted in other southern states. This law was also introduced in Louisiana, where it was challenged by Homer Plessy.

Case

June 7, 1892, 30-year-old colored shoemaker named Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "white" car East Louisiana Railroad. Plessy was only one-eighth black, and seven-eighths white, but in accordance with the laws of Louisiana, he was considered black and, therefore, have to sit in the "Colored" car. Plessy went to court and argued, in Homer Adolph Plessy v. Louisiana, that the individual cars of the law violated the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution. The judge in the trial was John Howard Ferguson, a lawyer from Massachusetts, who said earlier Separate Car Act "unconstitutional on trains that traveled through several states," . In the case of Plessy, however, he decided that the state may choose to regulate railroad companies that operated only within Louisiana. He found Plessy guilty of refusing to leave the white car.

Plessy appealed to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, which upheld Ferguson. In 1896, the United States Supreme Court heard the case of Plessy and found him guilty again. Speaking for the majority of seven, Judge Henry Brown wrote: "This [Private Car Act] does not contradict the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery ... is too clear, the argument is ... a regulatory act, which involves only the legal distinction between 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 people are different from the other race by color - has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races ... object [Fourteenth] mendment, of course, to ensure absolute equality of the two races before the law, but the nature of things it could not be to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to ensure social, as distinct from political equality, or a mixture of two races on terms unsatisfactory either.

A lone dissenter, Justice John Harlan, showed incredible foresight when he wrote: "Our Constitution is color, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. With respect to civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law ... In my opinion, the decision on that day will be provided in due course be just as pernicious as the decision, adopted by this court in the case of Dred Scott ... this decision, he may be detained, not only encourages aggression, more or less brutal and irritating, and recognized the rights of colored citizens, but will encourage the belief that it is possible, through public acts, to win beneficient purposes, the people of the United States had in mind when they adopted ...