Supreme Court Decision - Plessey v

Supreme Court Decision - Plessey v.
Ferguson (1896)

Mr. Justice BROWN delivered the opinion of the Court....

The object of 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 on 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, that
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.

The distinction between laws interfering with the political equality of the
negro and those requiring the separation of the two races in schools, theaters,
and railway carriages has been frequently drawn by this Court. [The opinion
then cites Strauder v. West Virginia as an example of the "political
equality" to which blacks were entitled.]

It is claimed by the plaintiff in
error that, in any mixed community, the reputation of belonging to the dominant
race, in this instance the white race, is property, in the same sense that a
right of action, or of inheritance, is property. Conceding this to be so, for
the purposes of this case, we are unable to see how this statute deprives him
of, or in any way affects his right to, such property. If he be a white man
and assigned to a colored coach, he may have his action for damages against the
company for being deprived of his so called property. Upon the other hand, if
he be a colored man and be so assigned, he has been deprived of no property,
since he is not lawfully entitled to the reputation of being a white man....

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