How did the US Supreme Court justify the Louisiana railroad segregation law in Plessy v. Ferguson?

Answer 1

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896)

Answer

The Plessy decision was largely based on a combination of rationalization and precedent established by earlier Supreme Court cases addressing the interpretation and application of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, such as The Slaughter-House Cases, (1873), and the Civil Rights Cases, (1883). In The Slaughter-House Cases, the Court held that the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply to the states; in the Civil Rights Cases, they held that Congress could not prevent private citizens from discriminating against African-Americans. Under the doctrine of stare decisis, case law is an important factor in determining the outcome of most cases, so prior decisions that undermined the intended effect of the "Restoration Amendments" (Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth) supported later decisions that continued to impede African-Americans' civil rights.

In addition, Congress' recent establishment of separate schools for African-American and white children in the District of Columbia appeared to (and did) sanction the practice of segregation was a detriment to any argument that Congress and the States intended to outlaw segregation.

The Court argued the Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890 (Act 111) was not in violation of either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendments. While conceding laws touching on the Fourteenth Amendment could not be arbitrary, the Court claimed the Act met the "reasonableness" test because it was in keeping with established customs and traditions, promoted comfort, peace and order, and was therefore constitutional.

Details of the Supreme Court Opinion

Justice Brown, in delivering the opinion of the Court, acknowledged, "The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law," then proceeded to reject the rule of law by insisting it wasn't 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 Court rejected outright the argument that the Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890 (Act 111) imposed a form of stigma on African-Americans. "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."

Justice Brown then followed the comment with an expression of racism contradictory to his previous assertion, "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."

The Court dispatched with the Fourteenth Amendment by declaring the Louisiana segregation law reasonable: "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."

The final piece of the Court's argument arose directly from bias and judicial activism, "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."

For more information, see Related Questions, below.

Answer 2

The Supreme Court ruling in Plessy V. Ferguson supported segregation laws by enforcing the doctrine of separate but equal. This meant that blacks and whites could be segregated legally in any public place. The rulling was overturned after the decision of Brown Vs. The Board of Education.