The sure guarantee of the peace and security of each race is the clear, distinct, unconstitutional recognition by our governments, national and state, of every right that inheres in civil freedom and of the equality before the law of all citizens of the United States without regard to race. Some, and the most important to them are wholly inapplicable, because rendered prior to the adoption of the last amendments of the Constitution, when colored people had very few rights which the dominant race felt obliged to respect. One statement often quoted by opponents of race-conscious affirmative action programs is Harlan's assertion that the Constitution is "color-blind," which can be found in the excerpts below. If laws of like character should be enacted in the several states of the Union, the effect would be in the highest degree mischievous. . Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) In Plessy v.Ferguson the Supreme Court held that the state of Louisiana did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment by establishing and enforcing a policy of racial segregation in its railway system.Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote a memorable dissent to that decision, parts of which are quoted today by both sides of the affirmative action controversy. For the reasons stated, I am constrained to withhold my assent from the opinion and judgment of the majority. As Justice Harlan observed, Plessy was in some ways a novel decision, for it expanded the tolerance of segregated schooling into a general principle permitting segregation in all walks of life, and this was likely motivated by a policy preference, as the more recent modes of … The lone dissenter was Justice John Marshall Harlan, himself a former slaveholder from Kentucky. 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 by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the state and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race. In 1892, they arranged for Homer Adolph Plessy to be arrested on an East Louisiana Railway train for refusing to move to the car designated for “colored passengers.” The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896 as Plessy v. Ferguson (named for the judge who first ruled against Plessy). The following are excerpts from Justice Harlan’s dissenting opinion: While there may be in Louisiana persons of different races who are not citizens of the United States, the words in the act “white and colored. John H. Ferguson, judge of the criminal district If a state can prescribe, as a rule of civil conduct, that whites and blacks shall not travel as passengers in the same railroad coach, why may it not so regulate the use of the streets of its cities and towns as to compel white citizens to keep on one side of a street and black citizens to keep on the other? In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. But in the view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. If a white man and a black man choose to occupy the same public conveyance on a public highway, it is their right to do so, and no government proceeding alone on grounds of race can prevent it without infringing the personal liberty of each. 82, p. 151, 1996. 1. In 1890, Louisiana passed a law compelling railways to “provide equal but separate accommodations for the white, and colored, races,” joining several southern states that had already passed similar laws. Brown wrote the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson that affirmed segregation. Justice Harlan’s dissenting opinion. The destinies of the two races in this country are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law. the answer is the constitution was color blind its probably too late but to anyone out there searching for the same thing, i put color blind and got it right We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. Source: Plessy v. Ferguson, 163, U.S. 537 (1896). Everyone knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons. But that amendment having been found inadequate to the protection of the rights of those who had been in slavery, it was followed by the Fourteenth Amendment, which added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship and to the security of personal liberty by declaring that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,” and that “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”, These two amendments, if enforced according to their true intent and meaning, will protect all the civil rights that pertain to freedom and citizenship. John Marshall Harlan, (born June 1, 1833, Boyle County, Ky., U.S.—died Oct. 14, 1911, Washington, D.C.), associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1877 until his death and one of the most forceful dissenters in the history of that tribunal. 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. It is quite another thing for government to forbid citizens of the white and black races from traveling in the same public conveyance, and to punish officers of railroad companies for permitting persons of the two races to occupy the same passenger coach. Mr. Justice HARLAN dissenting. But I deny that any legislative body or judicial tribunal may have regard to the race of citizens which the civil rights of those citizens are involved. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana. And why may it not also prohibit the commingling of the two races in the galleries of legislative halls or in public assemblages convened for the consideration of the political questions of the day? But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. State enactments regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race, and cunningly devised to defeat legitimate results of the war under the pretense of recognizing equality of rights, can have no other result than to render permanent peace impossible and to keep alive a conflict of races, the continuance of which must do harm to all concerned . The court ruled that segregation based on race was acceptable as long as facilities were of equal quality. But I deny that any legislative body or judicial tribunal may have regard to the race of citizens when the civil rights of those citizens are involved. Excerpted from: Gabriel J. Chin, The Plessy Myth: Justice Harlan and the Chinese Cases, 82 Iowa Law Review 151-182, 151-167 (October, 1996)(176 Footnotes) For a century, the vision of racial equality expressed in John Marshall Harlan's dissent in Plessy v. Is it meant that the determination of questions of legislative power depends upon the inquiry whether the statute whose validity is questioned is, in the judgment of the courts, a reasonable one, taking all the circumstances into consideration? MR. JUSTICE HARLAN dissenting. It decreed universal civil freedom in this country. There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. In Plessy v. Ferguson the Supreme Court held that the state of Louisiana did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment by establishing and enforcing a policy of racial segregation in its railway system. . Justice Harlan wrote a dissent stating that segregation violated the 14th Amendment because it … And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power. The adjudged cases in which statutes have been held to be void because unreasonable are those in which the means employed by the legislature were not at all germane to the end to which the legislature was competent. Amendment arguments and instead endorsed the doctrine of “separate but equal.” The dissent, written by Justice John Marshall Harlan, disagreed, arguing that segregation laws Another famous example of this type of dissenting opinion occurred when Justice John M. Harlan dissented to the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) ruling, arguing against allowing racial segregation in the railway system. Justice John Marshall Harlan of the U.S. Supreme Court . In 1890, Louisiana passed a law compelling railways to “provide equal but separate accommodations for the white, and colored, races,” joining several southern states that had already passed similar laws. 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