Maria Dominique B.

Vasallo

Plessy v. Ferguson
[163 U.S. 537, May 18, 1896]

Petitioner: Homer A. Plessy.

Respondent: John H. Ferguson.

Doctrine: A law, which authorizes or requires the separation of the two races on
public conveyances, is consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment of the United
States Constitution unless the law is unreasonable. In short, segregation did not
in itself constitute unlawful discrimination.

Facts:
Louisiana enacted the Separate Car Act, which required separate railway cars for
blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Plessy – who was seven-eighths Caucasian –
agreed to participate in a test to challenge the Act. He was solicited by the
Comite des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens), a group of New Orleans residents
who sought to repeal the Act. They asked Plessy, who was technically black
under Louisiana law, to sit in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train.

The railroad cooperated because it thought the Act imposed unnecessary costs
via the purchase of additional railroad cars. When Plessy was told to vacate the
whites-only car, he was refused and arrested.

At trial, Plessy’s lawyers argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth
and Fourteenth Amendments. The judge found that Louisiana could enforce this
law insofar as it affected railroads within its boundaries. Plessy was convicted.

Issues:
 Whether or not the statute requiring separate, but equal accommodations
on railroad transportation consistent with the Equal Protection Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution?

Ruling/Ratio:
 No, the Court held that the state law was constitutional.

Justice Henry Brown stated that although the Fourteenth Amendment of

the Constitution was designed to enforce the equality between the races, it
was not intended to abolish distinctions based on color, or to enforce a
commingling of the races in a way unsatisfactory to either. Laws requiring
the separation of the races do not imply the inferiority of either. If the law
“stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority,” it is because the
colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. Therefore, the
statute constitutes a valid exercise of the States’ police powers.

The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution does, however, require

that the exercise of a State’s police powers be reasonable. Laws enacted
in good faith, for the promotion of the public good and not for the
annoyance or oppression of another race are reasonable.

Hence, the statute was reasonable.