Excerpts from the Dissenting Opinion
Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote the dissent. 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. Thus, the state regulates the use of a public highway by citizens of the United States solely upon the basis of 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. 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. . . . 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 . . . 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 [Thirteenth and Fourteenth], if enforced according to their true intent and meaning, will protect all the civil rights that pertain to freedom and citizenship. • • • 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 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 beneficient
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. Questions to Consider: 1. According to Justice Harlan, what is the basic question before
the court? |