Why Is Plessy V. Ferguson Important

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896), a case regarding constitutional law of the US Supreme Court, that was upheld on a seven to one vote. Homer Plessy (1862-1925), an African American passenger on a train, sat in the whites-only train and declined when told to sit in the Jim Crow car, this action broke Louisiana law, The Separate Car Act. Judge John H. Ferguson (1838-1915) of the Criminal Court of New Orleans, the defendant, upheld the law, which was being challenged by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment. Ferguson was an American Louisiana judge and lawyer who served in many cases, but is most known for Plessy v. Ferguson.

This case, during the time of Jim Crow Laws, was stemmed from Plessy’s decision on June 7,1892 to purchase a first-class

Justice Henry Brown, who wrote the majority opinion, argued that the Fourteenth Amendment was not for social rights, like sitting on whichever train car one chooses, but rather legal equality rights, like voting. Therefore, The Court ruled the Constitution did not prohibit segregation because they were both given equal facilities and equally punished for violating the law, resulting in the two races being “separate but equal." The Thirteenth Amendment, according to the majority members of the court, was found to be irrelevant and only applied to slavery. Justice John Marshall Harlan parted with the majority opinion. He argued that segregation laws were founded on the theory that “colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens” yet the Constitution recognizes “no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens.” Harlan believed these laws promoted the belief that whites were the dominant race and African Americans were the inferior

Justice Henry Brown, for example, was biased in his decision of the Plessy v. Ferguson case. Brown even stated legislation cannot change public attitudes, he wrote, “Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences." In general during the time of the Plessy v. Ferguson case, many people were likely to disagree. The majority of the public saw African Americans as an inferior race, agreeing that there needed to be legislation separating them from whites, resulting in the Jim Crow Laws. Not many people agreed with Plessy and Justice Harlan at the time since they did not agree with the majority’s opinion, that Jim Crow Laws provided no segregation inequality because they were founded on the principle “separate but equal.” With the public’s bias, this court case was