What was the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy vs Ferguson?

zbeckabee

In a 7 to 1 decision in which Mr. Justice Brewer did not participate, the Court rejected Plessy's arguments based on the Thirteenth Amendment, seeing no way in which the Louisiana statute violated it. In addition, the majority of the Court rejected the view that the Louisiana law implied any inferiority of blacks, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, it contended that the law separated the two races as a matter of public policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy#The_decision Nov 26 07, 9:38 PM

AyatollahK

To be precise, the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine that separated whites and "nonwhites" under the law in several states, in this case Louisiana. Louisiana had passed a law that said that the races must be separated on railroad cars in the state. Plessy, who was only 1/8 black, looked white but was arrested when he refused to sit in the nonwhite car. The Supreme Court wrote that "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" -- despite the fact that there was no distinction "founded in the color of the two races" possible in his case. It also held that "the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority" was a "fallacy", and the definition of what was "colored" was a state law matter not fit for the Supreme Court to consider. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=163&invol=537 Nov 27 07, 12:10 AM