These remarkable additions to the Basic Law have been welcomed by friends of freedom around the world. They have removed the racial line from our systems of government. Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 306, 307 pp.; Virginia v. Rives, id. 313; Ex parte Virginia, Id. 339; Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370, 386; Bush v.
Com., 107 U.S. 110, 116, 1 pp. Sup. Ct. 625. Referring to previous judgments, the Court stated that “all such decisions are based on the principle that the Constitution of the United States, in its present form, prohibits discrimination against a citizen on the basis of race by the general government or the states with respect to civil and political rights. All citizens are equal before the law. Gibson v. State, 162 U.S. 565, 16 Sup. Ct. 904.
Much closer, and even almost directly to the point, is the case of Louisville, N. O. & T. Ry. Co. v. State, 133 U.S. 587, 10 Sup. 348, in which the railroad was accused of violating a Mississippi law that required all passenger railroads to provide equal but separate accommodations for white and colored races by providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train or by dividing passenger cars by a bulkhead, to obtain separate accommodation.
The case was presented from a different perspective than the present case, since it was an indictment against the railway company for failing to provide the separate accommodations, but the issue under consideration was the constitutionality of the legislation. In this case, the Mississippi Supreme Court (66 Miss. 662, 6 South. 203) held that the Act applied only to intra-State trade and, since it concerned the interpretation of the status of the State by its highest court, this was accepted as conclusive. “If it is a question,” the court stated (page 591, 133 U.S. and page 348, 10 Sup. Ct.), “to fully respect intra-state commerce and not interfere with interstate commerce, then there is obviously no violation of the trade clause of the Federal Constitution. According to this article, there is no doubt about the power of the state to separate interstate passengers into different compartments or to interfere in any way with the privileges and rights of these passengers.
All we can verify is whether the state has the power to require that railways within its borders have separate dwellings for the two races. The fact that only intrastate trade is affected is not an interference with the power conferred on Congress by the trade clause. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, in which the court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the United States. Constitution, as long as the facilities were of equal quality for each race, a doctrine that became known as “separate but equal.” [2] [3] The decision legitimized the many state segregation laws passed in the Southern United States after the end of the Reconstruction era (1865-1877). Plessy v. Ferguson intensified racial segregation in housing and public services across the United States and ensured its continuation for more than half a century by sanctioning it constitutionally. The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of der Rechtssache Brownc. The Topeka Board of Education explicitly rejected Plessy`s doctrine of “separate but equal” because it applied to public education, implying its unconstitutionality in all other areas of public life. It wasn`t until the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v.
Board of Education and Congressional Civil Rights Acts of the 1950s and 1960s that systematic segregation under state law ended. As part of these federal measures, many states have amended or rewritten their state constitutions to reflect the spirit of the 14th Amendment. For Homer Plessy, the remedies came too late. Harlan predicted that the Plessy decision would eventually become as famous as the 1857 court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, in which the court ruled that black Americans could not be citizens under the U.S. Constitution and that their legal protection and privileges could never apply to them. The white race considers itself the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, achievement, education, wealth and power. So, I have no doubt, it will remain so forever if it remains true to its great heritage and adheres to the principles of constitutional freedom. But given the constitution, in the eyes of the law, there is no upper, dominant and ruling class of citizens in this country. There is no caste here. Our constitution is colorblind and does not know or tolerate classes among citizens.
In terms of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the mightiest. The law considers man as a human being and has no regard for his environment or the color of his skin when it comes to his civil rights, as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land. It is therefore regrettable that this High Court, the last interpreter of the Basic Law of the land, has concluded that it is competent for a State to regulate the enjoyment of civil rights by citizens solely on the basis of race. Similar reasoning applies to this case, as the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in State v. Justice, 44 La. Ann. 770, 11 South. 74 found that the right at issue did not apply to international passengers, but was limited in its application to passengers travelling exclusively within the borders of the State.
The case was largely based on the authority of Louisville, N.O. & T. Ry. Co. v. decided. State, 66 Miss. 662, 6 South, 203, and affirmed by this court in 133 U.S.
587, 10 Sup. Ct. 348. In the present case, there can be no question of disruption of interstate trade, since the East Louisiana Railway appears to have been a purely local line ending in the State of Louisiana. Similar laws for the separation of the two races in public transportation were found to be constitutional in Railroad V. Miles, 55 Pa. 209 Street; Day v. Owen 5 Mich. 520; Railway Co. v. Williams, 55 fig. 185; Railroad Co.
v. Wells, 85 Tenn. 613; 4 pp. W. 5; Railroad Co. v. Benson, 85 Tenn. 627, 4 pp. W. 5; The Sue, 22 Fed. 843; Logwood v Railroad Co., 23 Fed.
318; McGuinn v. Forbes, 37 Fed. 639; People v. King ( N. Y. App.) 18 N. E. 245; Houck v. Railway Co., 38 Fed. 226; Heard v.
Railroad Co., 3 Inter St. Commerce Com. R. 111, 1 Inter St. Commerce Com. R. 428. Justice Harlan`s dissent alone argued that the law implied civil, not just political, equality.
He noted that the purpose of the law was not to exclude whites from railroad cars that carried blacks, but blacks from railroad cars that transported whites. “Given the constitution, there is no upper and dominant ruling class in this country in the eyes of the law. There is no caste here. Our constitution is colorblind and does not know or tolerate classes among citizens. In terms of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the mightiest. The law considers man as a human being and has no regard for his environment or the color of his skin when it comes to his civil rights, as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land. From 1890 to 1908, Southern state legislatures disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites by rejecting them for voter registration and voting: voter registration was made more difficult by providing more detailed documents such as proof of land ownership or literacy tests conducted by white staff at polling stations. Leaders of the African-American community who had achieved brief political successes during the Reconstruction era and even in the 1880s lost gains when their voters were excluded from the political system. Historian Rogers Smith has noted that “legislators often admitted, even boasted, that measures such as complex registration rules, literacy and property testing, voting taxes, white primaries, and grandfather clauses were intended to produce an electorate confined to a white race that declared itself superior.” in particular the rejection of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution. [54] One of the oldest of these cases is Roberts v.