...Mr. Justice Brown...delivered the opinion of the court.
This case turns upon the constitutionality of an act of the general assembly of the state of
Louisiana, passed in 1890, providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored
races. Acts 1890, No. 111, p. 152.
The...statute enacts "that all railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in this state,
shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white, and colored races, by providing
two or more passenger coaches for each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger coaches by
a partition so as to secure separate accommodations: provided, that this section shall not be
construed to apply to street railroads. No person or persons shall be permitted to occupy seats in
coaches, other than the ones assigned to them, on account of the race they belong to."
...The information filed in the criminal district court charged, in substance, that Plessy, being a
passenger between two stations within the state of Louisiana, was assigned by officers of the
company to the coach used for the race to which he belonged, but he insisted upon going into a
coach used by the race to which he did not belong. Neither in the information nor plea was his
particular race or color averred.
The petition for the writ of prohibition averred that petitioner was seven-eighths Caucasian and
one-eighth African blood; that the mixture of colored blood was not discernible in him; and that
he was entitled to every right, privilege, and immunity secured to citizens of the United States of
the white race; and that, upon such theory, he took possession of a vacant seat in a coach where
passengers of the white race were accommodated, and was ordered by the conductor to vacate
said coach, and take a seat in another, assigned to persons of the colored race, and, having
refused to comply with such demand, he was forcibly ejected, with the aid of a police officer, and
imprisoned in the parish jail to answer a charge of having violated the above act.
The constitutionality of this act is attacked upon the ground that it conflicts both with the
Thirteenth Amendment of the constitution, abolishing slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment,
which prohibits certain restrictive legislation on the part of the states.
1. 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. Slavery implies
involuntary servitude, -- a state of bondage; the ownership of mankind as a chattel, or, at least,
the control of the labor and services of one man for the benefit of another, and the absence of a
legal right to the disposal of his own person, property, and services. This amendment was said in
the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, to have been intended primarily to abolish slavery, as it
had been previously known in this country, and that it equally forbade Mexican peonage or the
Chinese coolie trade, when they amounted to slavery or involuntary servitude, and that the use of
the word "servitude" was intended to prohibit the use of all forms of involuntary slavery, of
whatever class or name. It was intimated, however, in that case, that this amendment was
regarded by the statesmen of that day as insufficient to protect the colored race from certain laws
which had been enacted in the Southern states, imposing upon the colored race onerous
disabilities and burdens and curtailing their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and property to
such an extent that their freedom was of little value; and that the Fourteenth Amendment was
devised to meet this exigency...
"It would be running the slavery question into the ground," said Mr. Justice Bradley, "to make it
apply to every act of discrimination which a person may see fit to make as to the guests he will
entertain, or as to the people he will take into his coach or cab or car, or admit to his concert or
theater, or deal with in other matters of intercourse or business."
A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races -- a
distinction which is founded in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as
white men are distinguished from the other race by color -- has no tendency to destroy the legal
equality of the two races, or re-establish a state of involuntary servitude. Indeed, we do not
understand that the Thirteenth Amendment is strenuously relied upon by the plaintiff in error in
this connection.
2. By the Fourteenth Amendment, all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject
to the jurisdiction thereof, are made citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they
reside; and the states are forbidden from making or enforcing any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or shall deprive any person of life, liberty,
or property without due process of law, or deny to any person within their jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws...
The object of the 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 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 most
common instance of this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and
colored children, which have 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.
One of the earliest of these cases is that of Roberts v. City of Boston, 5 Cush. 198,
in which the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts held that the general school committee of
Boston had power to make provision for the instruction of colored children in separate schools
established exclusively for them, and to prohibit their attendance upon the other schools. "The
great principle," said Chief Justice Shaw, "advanced by the learned and eloquent advocate for the
plaintiff [Mr. Charles Sumner], is that, by the constitution and laws of Massachusetts, all persons,
without distinction of age or sex, birth or color, origin or condition, are equal before the law. But,
when this great principle comes to be applied to the actual and various conditions of persons in
society, it will not warrant the assertion that men and women are legally clothed with the same
civil and political powers, and that children and adults are legally to have the same functions and
be subject to the same treatment; but only that the rights of all, as they are settled and regulated
by law, are equally entitled to the paternal consideration and protection of the law for their
maintenance and security."...
Laws forbidding the intermarriage of the two races may be said in a technical sense to interfere
with the freedom of contract, and yet have been universally recognized as within the police power
of the state. State v. Gibson, 36 Ind. 389...
While we think the enforced separation of the races, as applied to the internal commerce of the
state, neither abridges the privileges or immunities of the colored man, deprives him of his
property without due process of law, nor denies him the equal protection of the laws, within the
meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, we are not prepared to say that the conductor, in
assigning passengers to the coaches according to their race, does not act at his peril, or that the
provision of the second section of the act that denies to the passenger compensation in damages
for a refusal to receive him into the coach in which he properly belongs is a valid exercise of the
legislative power. Indeed, we understand it to be conceded by the state's attorney that such part of
the act as exempts from liability the railway company and its officers is unconstitutional. The
power to assign to a particular coach obviously implies the power to determine to which race the
passenger belongs, as well as the power to determine who, under the laws of the particular state,
is to be deemed a white, and who a colored, person. This question, though, indicated in the brief
of the plaintiff in error, does not properly arise upon the record in this case, since the only issue
made is as to the unconstitutionality of the act, so far as it requires the railway to provide separate
accommodations, and the conductor to assign passengers according to their race...
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.
We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the
enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority... The
argument necessarily assumes that if, as has been more than once the case, and is not unlikely to
be so again, the colored race should become the dominant power in the state legislature, and
should enact a law in precisely similar terms, it would thereby relegate the white race to an
inferior position. We imagine that the white race, at least, would not acquiesce in this assumption.
The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal
rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We
cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must
be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other's merits, and a voluntary
consent of individuals... 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...
The judgment of the court below is therefore affirmed...
Mr. Justice Harlan dissenting.
By the Louisiana statute the validity of which is here involved, all railway companies (other than
street-railroad companies) carrying passengers in that state are required to have separate but equal
accommodations for white and colored persons, "by providing two or more passenger coaches for
each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger coaches by a partition so as to secure separate
accommodations." Under this statute, no colored person is permitted to occupy a seat in a coach
assigned to colored person. The managers of the railroad are not allowed to exercise any
discretion in the premises, but are required to assign each passenger to some coach or
compartment set apart for the exclusive use of his race. If a passenger insists upon going into a
coach or compartment not set apart for persons of his race, he is subject to be fined, or to be
imprisoned in the parish jail...
Only "nurses attending children of the other race" are excepted from the operation of the statute.
No exception is made of colored attendants traveling with adults. A white man is not permitted to
have his colored servant with him in the same coach, even if his condition of health requires the
constant personal assistance of such servant. If a colored maid insists upon riding in the same
coach with a white woman whom she has been employed to serve, and who may need her
personal attention while traveling, she is subject to be fined or imprisoned for such an exhibition
of zeal in the discharge of duty.
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 races" necessarily include all citizens of the United
States of both races residing in that state. So that we have before us a state enactment that
compels, under penalties, the separation of the two races in railroad passenger coaches, and
makes it a crime for a citizen of either race to enter a coach that has been assigned to citizens of
the other race...
However apparent the injustice of such legislation may be, we have only to consider whether it is
consistent with the constitution of the United States.
That a railroad is a public highway, and that the corporation which owns or operates it is in the
exercise of public functions, is not, at this day, to be disputed... Mr. Justice Strong, delivering the
judgment of this court in Olcott v. Supervisors...said: "That railroads, though
constructed by private corporations, and owned by them, are public highways, has been the
doctrine of nearly all the courts ever since such conveniences for passage and transportation have
had any existence. Very early the question arose whether a state's right of eminent domain could
be exercised by a private corporation created for the purpose of constructing a railroad. Clearly, it
could not, unless taking land for such a purpose by such an agency is taking land for public use.
The right of eminent domain nowhere justifies taking property for a private use. Yet it is a
doctrine universally accepted that a state legislature may authorize a private corporation to take
land for the construction of such a road, making compensation to the owner. What else does this
doctrine mean if not that building a railroad, though it be built by a private corporation, is an act
done for public use?" So, in Township of Pine Grove v. Talcott... "though the
corporation [a railroad company] was private, its work was public, as much so as if it were to be
constructed by the state." So, in Inhabitants of Worcester v. Western R. Corp., 4
Metc. (Mass.) 564: "The establishment of that great thoroughfare is regarded as a public work,
established by public authority, intended for the public use and benefit, the use of which is secured
to the whole community, and constitutes, therefore...a public easement." "It is true that the real
and personal property, necessary to the establishment and management of the railroad, is vested in
the corporation; but it is in trust for the public."
In respect of civil rights, common to all citizens, the constitution of the United States does not, I
think, permit any public authority to know the race of those entitled to be protected in the
enjoyment of such rights. Every true man has pride of race, and under appropriate circumstances,
when the rights of others, his equals before the law, are not to be affected, it is his privilege to
express such pride and to take such action based upon it as to him seems proper. 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. Indeed, such legislation as that here in question is
inconsistent not only with that equality of rights which pertains to citizenship, national and state,
but with the personal liberty enjoyed by every one within the United States.
The Thirteenth Amendment does not permit the withholding or the deprivation of any right
necessarily inhering in freedom. It not only struck down the institution of slavery as previously
existing in the United States, but it prevents the imposition of any burdens or disabilities that
constitute badges of slavery or servitude. It decreed universal civil freedom in this country. This
court has so adjudged. 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...
These notable additions to the fundamental law were welcomed by the friends of liberty
throughout the world. They removed the race line from our governmental systems. They had, as
this court has said, a common purpose, namely, to secure "to a race recently emancipated, a race
that through many generations have been held in slavery, all the civil rights that the superior race
enjoy." They declared, in legal effect, this court has further said, "that the law in the state shall be
the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand
equal before the laws of the states; and in regard to the colored race, for whose protection the
amendment was primarily designed, that no discrimination shall be made against them by law
because of their color." We also said: "The words of the amendment, it is true, are prohibitory,
but they contain a necessary implication of a positive immunity or right, most valuable to the
colored race,--the right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as
colored; exemption from legal discriminations, implying inferiority in civil society, lessening the
security of their enjoyment of the rights which others enjoy; and discriminations which are steps
towards reducing them to the condition of a subject race." It was, consequently, adjudged that a
state law that excluded citizens of the colored race from juries, because of their race, however
well qualified in other respects to discharge the duties of jurymen, was repugnant to the
Fourteenth Amendment...
The decisions referred to show the scope of the recent amendments of the constitution. They also
show that it is not within the power of a state to prohibit colored citizens, because of their race,
from participating as jurors in the administration of justice.
It was said in argument that the statute of Louisiana does not discriminate against either race, but
prescribes a rule applicable alike to white and colored citizens. But this argument does not meet
the difficulty. Every one 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. Railroad corporations of
Louisiana did not make discrimination among whites in the matter of accommodation for
travelers. The thing to accomplish was, under the guise of giving equal accommodation for whites
and blacks, to compel the latter to keep to themselves while traveling in railroad passenger
coaches. No one would be so wanting in candor as to assert the contrary. The fundamental
objection, therefore, to the statute, is that it interferes with the personal freedom 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.
It is one thing for railroad carriers to furnish, or to be required by law to furnish, equal
accommodations for all whom they are under a legal duty to carry. 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. 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? Why may it not, upon like grounds, punish whites
and blacks who ride together in street cars or in open vehicles on a public road or street? Why
may it not require sheriffs to assign whites to one side of a court room, and blacks to the other?
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?
Further, if this statute of Louisiana is consistent with the personal liberty of citizens, why may not
the state require the separation in railroad coaches of native and naturalized citizens of the United
States, or of Protestants and Roman Catholics?
The answer given at the argument to these questions was that regulations of the kind they suggest
would be unreasonable, and could not, therefore, stand before the law. 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? A statute may be unreasonable merely because a sound public
policy forbade its enactment. But I do not understand that the courts have anything to do with the
policy or expediency of legislation. A statute may be valid, and yet, upon grounds of public policy,
may well be characterized as unreasonable. Mr. Sedgwick correctly states the rule when he says
that, the legislative intention being clearly ascertained, "the courts have no other duty to perform
than to execute the legislative will, without any regard to their views as to the wisdom or justice
of the particular enactment." Sedg. St. & Const. Law, 324. There is a dangerous tendency in these
latter days to enlarge the functions of the courts, by means of judicial interference with the will of
the people as expressed by the legislature.... Statutes must always have a reasonable construction.
Sometimes they are to be construed strictly; sometimes literally, in order to carry out the
legislative will. But, however construed, the intent of the legislature is to be respected if the
particular statute in question is valid, although the courts, looking at the public interests, may
conceive the statute to be both unreasonable and impolitic. If the power exists to enact a statute,
that ends the matter so far as the courts are concerned. 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.
The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in
achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all
time, if it remains true to its great heritage, and holds fast to the principles of constitutional
liberty. But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior,
dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and
neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal
before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and
takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the
supreme law of the land are involved. It is therefore to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final
expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a
state to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race.
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.
It was adjudged in that case that the descendants of Africans who were imported into this
country, and sold as slaves, were not included nor intended to be included under the word
"citizens" in the constitution, and could not claim any of the rights and privileges which that
instrument provided for and secured to citizens of the United States; that, at the time of the
adoption of the constitution, they were "considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings,
who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained
subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power
and the government might choose to grant them." 17 How. 393, 404. The recent amendments of
the constitution, it was supposed, had eradicated these principles from our institutions. But it
seems that we have yet, in some of the states, a dominant race,--a superior class of
citizens,--which assumes to regulate the enjoyment of civil rights, common to all citizens, upon
the basis of race. The present decision, it may well be apprehended, will not only stimulate
aggressions, more or less brutal and irritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but
will encourage the belief that it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent
purposes which the people of the United States had in view when they adopted the recent
amendments of the constitution, by one of which the blacks of this country were made citizens of
the United States and of the states in which they respectively reside, and whose privileges and
immunities, as citizens, the states are forbidden to abridge. Sixty millions of whites are in no
danger from the presence here of eight millions of blacks. 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.
What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of
distrust between these races, than state enactments which, in fact, proceed on the ground that
colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches
occupied by white citizens? That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was
enacted in Louisiana.
The sure guaranty of the peace and security of each race is the clear, distinct, unconditional
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. 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 arbitrary separation of citizens, on the basis of race, while they are on a public highway, is a
badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law
established by the constitution. It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds.
If evils will result from the commingling of the two races upon public highways established for the
benefit of all, they will be infinitely less than those that will surely come from state legislation
regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race. We boast of the freedom enjoyed
by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state of the
law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our
fellow citizens,--our equals before the law. The thin disguise of "equal" accommodations for
passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead any one, nor atone for the wrong this day
done.
The result of the whole matter is that while this court has frequently adjudged, and at the present
term has recognized the doctrine, that a state cannot, consistently with the constitution of the
United States, prevent white and black citizens, having the required qualifications for jury service,
from sitting in the same jury box, it is now solemnly held that a state may prohibit white and black
citizens from sitting in the same passenger coach on a public highway, or may require that they be
separated by a "partition" when in the same passenger coach. May it not now be reasonably
expected that astute men of the dominant race, who affect to be disturbed at the possibility that
the integrity of the white race may be corrupted, or that its supremacy will be imperiled, by
contact on public highways with black people, will endeavor to procure statutes requiring white
and black jurors to be separated in the jury box by a "partition," and that, upon retiring from the
court room to consult as to their verdict, such partition, if it be a movable one, shall be taken to
their consultation room, and set up in such way as to prevent black jurors from coming too close
to their brother jurors of the white race. If the "partition" used in the court room happens to be
stationary, provision could be made for screens with openings through which jurors of the two
races could confer as to their verdict without coming into personal contact with each other. I
cannot see but that, according to the principles this day announced, such state legislation,
although conceived in hostility to, and enacted for the purpose of humiliating, citizens of the
United States of a particular race, would be held to be consistent with the constitution...
I am of opinion that the statute of Louisiana is inconsistent with the personal liberty of citizens,
white and black, in that state, and hostile to both the spirit and letter of the constitution of the
United States. If laws of like character should be enacted in the several states of the Union, the
effect would be in the highest degree mischievous. 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. Such a system is inconsistent with the guaranty
given by the constitution to each state of a republican form of government, and may be stricken
down by congressional action, or by the courts in the discharge of their solemn duty to maintain
the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary
notwithstanding.
For the reason stated, I am constrained to withhold my assent from the opinion and judgment of
the majority.
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