Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 sep =

=<div>=<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corporations-people-adam-winkler/554852/">https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corporations-people-adam-winkler/554852/</a>no lnxBUSINESS‘Corporations Are People’ Is Built on an Incredible 19th-Century LieHow a farcical series of events in the 1880s produced an enduring and controversial legal precedent
By Adam Winkler[An archival caricature of a railroad baron swallowing America’s train linesA 1907 caricature of the railroad baron Edward H. Harriman swallowing America’s train lines. (Luther Bradley / Library of Congress / Corbis / Getty)]MARCH 5, 2018Somewhat counterintuitively, American corporations today enjoy many of the same rights as American citizens. Both, for instance, are entitled to the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion. How exactly did corporations come to be understood as “people” bestowed with the most fundamental constitutional rights? The answer can be found in a bizarre—even farcical—series of lawsuits more than 130 years ago involving a lawyer who lied to the Supreme Court, an ethically challenged justice, and one of the most powerful corporations of the day.That corporation was the Southern Pacific Railroad, owned by the robber baron Leland Stanford. In 1881, after California lawmakers imposed a special tax on railroad property, Southern Pacific pushed back, making the bold argument that the law was an act of unconstitutional discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment. Adopted after the Civil War to protect the rights of freed slaves, that amendment guarantees  every “person” the “equal protection of the laws.” Stanford’s railroad argued that it was a person too, reasoning that just as the Constitution prohibited discrimination on the basis of racial identity, so did it bar discrimination against Southern Pacific on the basis of its corporate identity.The head lawyer representing Southern Pacific was a man named Roscoe Conkling. A leader of the Republican Party for more than a decade, Conkling had even been nominated to the Supreme Court twice. He begged off both times, the second time after the Senate had confirmed him. (He remains the last person to turn down a Supreme Court seat after winning confirmation). More than most lawyers, Conkling was seen by the justices as a peer.It was a trust Conkling would betray. As he spoke before the Court on Southern Pacific’s behalf, Conkling recounted an astonishing tale. In the 1860s, when he was a young congressman, Conkling had served on the drafting committee that was responsible for writing the Fourteenth Amendment. Then the last member of the committee still living, Conkling told the justices that the drafters had changed the wording of the amendment, replacing “citizens” with “persons” in order to cover corporations too. Laws referring to “persons,” he said, have “by long and constant acceptance … been held to embrace artificial persons as well as natural persons.” Conkling buttressed his account with a surprising piece of evidence: a musty old journal he claimed was a previously unpublished record of the deliberations of the drafting committee.Years later, historians would discover that Conkling’s journal was real but his story was a fraud. The journal was in fact a record of the congressional committee’s deliberations, but, upon close examination, it offered no evidence that the drafters intended to protect corporations. It showed, in fact, that the language of the equal-protection clause was never changed from “citizen” to “person.” So far as anyone can tell, the rights of corporations were not raised in the public debates over the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment or in any of the states’ ratifying conventions. And prior to Conkling’s appearance on behalf of Southern Pacific, no member of the drafting committee had ever suggested that corporations were covered.There’s reason to suspect that Conkling’s deception was uncovered back in his time too. The justices held onto the case for three years without ever issuing a decision, until Southern Pacific unexpectedly settled the case. Then, shortly after, another case from Southern Pacific reached the Supreme Court, raising the exact same legal question. The company had the same team of lawyers, with the exception of Conkling. Tellingly, Southern Pacific’s lawyers omitted any mention of Conkling’s drafting history or his journal. Had those lawyers believed Conkling, it would have been malpractice to leave out his story.When the Court issued its decision on this second case, the justices expressly declined to decide if corporations were people. The dispute could be, and was, resolved on other grounds, prompting an angry rebuke from one justice, Stephen J. Field, who castigated his colleagues for failing to address “the important constitutional questions involved.” “At the present day, nearly all great enterprises are conducted by corporations,” he wrote, and they deserved to know if they had equal rights too.Rumored to carry a gun with him at all times, the colorful Field was the only sitting justice ever arrested—and the charge was murder. He was innocent, but nonetheless guilty of serious ethical violations in the Southern Pacific cases, at least by modern standards: A confidant of Leland Stanford, Field had advised the company on which lawyers to hire for this very series of cases and thus should have recused himself from them. He refused to—and, worse, while the first case was pending, covertly shared internal memoranda of the justices with Southern Pacific’s legal team.The rules of judicial ethics were not well developed in the Gilded Age, however, and the self-assured Field, who feared the forces of socialism, did not hesitate to weigh in. Taxing the property of railroads differently, he said, was like allowing deductions for property “owned by white men or by old men, and not deducted if owned by black men or young men.”So, with Field on the Court, still more twists were yet to come. The Supreme Court’s opinions are officially published in volumes edited by an administrator called the reporter of decisions. By tradition, the reporter writes up a summary of the Court’s opinion and includes it at the beginning of the opinion. The reporter in the 1880s was J. C. Bancroft Davis, whose wildly inaccurate summary of the Southern Pacific case said that the Court had ruled that “corporations are persons within … the Fourteenth Amendment.” Whether his summary was an error or something more nefarious—Davis had once been the president of the Newburgh and New York Railway company—will likely never be known.Field nonetheless saw Davis’s erroneous summary as an opportunity. A few years later, in an opinion in an unrelated case, Field wrote that “corporations are persons within the meaning” of the Fourteenth Amendment. “It was so held in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad,” explained Field, who knew very well that the Court had done no such thing.His gambit worked. In the following years, the case would be cited over and over by courts across the nation, including the Supreme Court, for deciding that corporations had rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.Indeed, the faux precedent in the Southern Pacific case would go on to be used by a Supreme Court that in the early 20th century became famous for striking down numerous economic regulations, including federal child-labor laws, zoning laws, and wage-and-hour laws. Meanwhile, in cases like the notorious Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), those same justices refused to read the Constitution as protecting the rights of African Americans, the real intended beneficiaries of the Fourteenth Amendment. Between 1868, when the amendment was ratified, and 1912, the Supreme Court would rule on 28 cases involving the rights of African Americans and an astonishing 312 cases on the rights of corporations.The day back in 1882 when the Supreme Court first heard Roscoe Conkling’s argument, the New-York Daily Tribune featured a story on the case with a headline that would turn out to be prophetic: “Civil Rights of Corporations.” Indeed, in a feat of deceitful legal alchemy, Southern Pacific and its wily legal team had, with the help of an audacious Supreme Court justice, set up the Fourteenth Amendment to be more of a bulwark for the rights of businesses than the rights of minorities.Adam Winkler is a professor at the UCLA School of Law. He is the author of We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights and Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.
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</div><div>Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Reports" title="United States Reports" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">U.S.</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/163/537/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); padding-right: 13px; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) 100% 50% no-repeat, url(data:image/svg+xml,%3C%3Fxml%20version%3D%221.0%22%20encoding%3D%22UTF-8%22%3F%3E%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20width%3D%2210%22%20height%3D%2210%22%3E%3Cg%20transform%3D%22translate%28-826.429%20-698.791%29%22%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%225.982%22%20height%3D%225.982%22%20x%3D%22826.929%22%20y%3D%22702.309%22%20fill%3D%22%23fff%22%20stroke%3D%22%2306c%22%2F%3E%3Cg%3E%3Cpath%20d%3D%22M831.194%20698.791h5.234v5.391l-1.571%201.545-1.31-1.31-2.725%202.725-2.689-2.689%202.808-2.808-1.311-1.311z%22%20fill%3D%22%2306f%22%2F%3E%3Cpath%20d%3D%22M835.424%20699.795l.022%204.885-1.817-1.817-2.881%202.881-1.228-1.228%202.881-2.881-1.851-1.851z%22%20fill%3D%22%23fff%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fg%3E%3C%2Fg%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E) 100% 50%;">537</a> (1896), was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landmark_court_decisions_in_the_United_States" title="List of landmark court decisions in the United States" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">landmark</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Supreme_Court" title="United States Supreme Court" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">United States Supreme Court</a> decision upholding the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutionality" title="Constitutionality" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">constitutionality</a> of state laws requiring <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation" title="Racial segregation" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">racial segregation</a> in public facilities under the doctrine of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal" title="Separate but equal" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">separate but equal</a>".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[1]</a>The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority opinion written by Justice <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Billings_Brown" title="Henry Billings Brown" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Henry Billings Brown</a> and the dissent written by Justice <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan" title="John Marshall Harlan" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">John Marshall Harlan</a>. Louisiana Justice <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Douglass_White" title="Edward Douglass White" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Edward Douglass White</a> was one of the majority: he was a member of the New Orleans Pickwick Club and the Crescent City <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_League" title="White League" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">White League</a>, the latter a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramilitary" title="Paramilitary" style="color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">paramilitary</a> organization that had supported <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_supremacy" title="White supremacy" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">white supremacy</a> with violence through the 1870s to suppress black voting and regain political power by white property owners.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-pickwick-2" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[2]</a>"Separate but equal" remained standard doctrine in U.S. law until its repudiation in the 1954 Supreme Court decision <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v.Board_of_Education" title="Brown v. Board of Education" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Brown v. Board of Education</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-credoreference1-3" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[3]</a>After the Supreme Court ruling, the New Orleans Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens), which had brought the suit and had arranged for<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Plessy" title="Homer Plessy" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Homer Plessy</a>'s arrest in an act of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience" title="Civil disobedience" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">civil disobedience</a> in order to challenge Louisiana's segregation law, stated, "We, as freemen, still believe that we were right and our cause is sacred."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-freemen-4" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[4]</a><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 7px; font-size: 13.3000001907349px; display: table; zoom: 1; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><div id="toctitle" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;"><h2 style="color: black; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; font-size: 13.3000001907349px; display: inline; line-height: 1.3; background: none;">Contents</h2>  [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">hide</a>] </div><ul style="line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#Background" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">1 Background</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#Decision_and_dissent" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">2 Decision and dissent</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#Influence" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">3 Influence</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#Plessy_and_Ferguson_Foundation" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">4 Plessy and Ferguson Foundation</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#Plaque_at_railyard_site" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">5 Plaque at railyard site</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#References" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">6 References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#Further_reading" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7 Further reading</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#External_links" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">8 External links</a></li></ul></div></div><div></div><div>In 1890, the state of Louisiana passed a law (the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_Car_Act" title="Separate Car Act" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Separate Car Act</a>) that required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-credoreference1-3" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[3]</a> Concerned, a group of prominent black, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Creole_people" title="Louisiana Creole people" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">creole</a>, and white New Orleans residents formed the Comité des Citoyens (Committee of Citizens) dedicated to repeal the law.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-freemen-4" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[4]</a> They eventually persuaded <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Plessy" title="Homer Plessy" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Homer Plessy</a>, a man of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_race" title="Mixed race" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">mixed race</a>, to participate in an orchestrated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_case(law)" title="Test case (law)" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">test case</a>. Plessy was born a free man and was an "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octoroon" title="Octoroon" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">octoroon</a>" (of seven-eighths European descent and one-eighth African descent). However, under Louisiana law, he was classified as black, and thus required to sit in the "colored" car.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[5]</a>On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket at the Press Street Depot and boarded a "whites only" car of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=East_Louisiana_Railroad&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="East Louisiana Railroad (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(165, 88, 88); background: none;">East Louisiana Railroad</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans" title="New Orleans" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">New Orleans, Louisiana</a>, bound for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covington,Louisiana" title="Covington, Louisiana" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Covington, Louisiana</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[6]</a> The railroad company, which opposed the law on the grounds that it would require the purchase of more railcars, had been previously informed of Plessy's racial lineage, and the intent to challenge the law.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-plessy.26ferg-7" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[7]</a>Additionally, the committee hired a private detective with arrest powers to detain Plessy, to ensure he was charged for violating the Separate Car Act, as opposed to a vagrancy or some other offense.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-plessy.26ferg-7" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[7]</a> After Plessy took a seat in the whites-only railway car, he was asked to vacate it, and sit instead in the blacks-only car. Plessy refused and was arrested immediately by the detective.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[8]</a> As planned, the train was stopped, and Plessy was taken off the train at Press and Royal streets.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-plessy.26ferg-7" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[7]</a> Plessy was remanded for trial in Orleans Parish.</div><div></div><div><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-family: 'Linux Libertine', Georgia, Times, serif; line-height: 1.3; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Decision and dissent<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select: none; font-size: small; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; font-family: sans-serif;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plessy_v.Ferguson&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Decision and dissent" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>The state legal brief was prepared personally by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_of_Louisiana" title="Attorney General of Louisiana" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Attorney General</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Joseph_Cunningham" title="Milton Joseph Cunningham" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Milton Joseph Cunningham</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natchitoches,Louisiana" title="Natchitoches, Louisiana" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Natchitoches</a> and New Orleans. Earlier Cunningham had fought to restore <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_supremacy" title="White supremacy" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">white supremacy</a>during Reconstruction.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[11]</a>In the seven-to-one decision handed down on May 18, 1896 (Justice <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Josiah_Brewer" title="David Josiah Brewer" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">David Josiah Brewer</a> did not participate because of the death of his daughter),<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[12]</a> the Court rejected Plessy's arguments based on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" title="Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Fourteenth Amendment</a>, seeing no way in which the Louisiana statute violated it.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-plessy.26ferg-7" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[7]</a> 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.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[13]</a>When summarizing, Justice Brown declared, "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. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-justia-14" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[14]</a>While the Court did not find a difference in quality between the whites-only and blacks-only railway cars, this was manifestly untrue in the case of most other separate facilities, such as: public toilets, cafés, and public schools, where the facilities designated for blacks were consistently of lesser quality than those for whites.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[15]</a>Justice <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan" title="John Marshall Harlan" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">John Marshall Harlan</a>, who decried the excesses of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan" title="Ku Klux Klan" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Ku Klux Klan</a>, wrote a scathing dissent in which he predicted the court's decision would become as infamous as that of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v.Sandford" title="Dred Scott v. Sandford" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Dred Scott v. Sandford</a> (1857). Following is part of Justice Harlan's dissent, asserting, "The law regards man as man":
<dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-right: 0px;">[I]n 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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste" title="Caste" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">caste</a> 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.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[16]</a></dd></dl>Some commentators, such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_J.Chin" title="Gabriel J. Chin" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Gabriel J. Chin</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[17]</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eric_Maltz&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Eric Maltz (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(165, 88, 88); background: none;">Eric Maltz</a>,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-Maltz-18" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[18]</a> have viewed Harlan's Plessy dissent in a more critical light, and suggested it be viewed in context with his other decisions.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-FOOTNOTEChin1996-19" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[19]</a> Maltz has argued that "modern commentators have often overstated Harlan's distaste for race-based classifications," pointing to other aspects of decisions in which Harlan was involved.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMaltz19961015-20" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[20]</a> Both point to a passage of Harlan's Plessy dissent as particularly troubling:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-FOOTNOTEChin1996156-21" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[21]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-FOOTNOTEMaltz19961002-22" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[22]</a> "There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a China man can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union", he wrote.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-justia-14" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[14]</a>New Orleans historian Keith Weldon Medley, author of We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson, The Fight Against Legal Segregation, said the words in Justice Harlan's "Great Dissent" were taken from papers filed with the court by "The Citizen's Committee".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v.Ferguson#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[23]</a></div><div></div><div><table class="nowraplinks navbox-subgroup" style="font-size: 12.3199996948242px; width: 257px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 14.7839994430542px; text-align: center; border-spacing: 0px; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-odd" style="line-height: 1.3em; border-color: rgb(253, 253, 253); vertical-align: top; width: 244.6875px; padding: 0.1em 0.5em !important; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><div style="padding: 0em 0.25em;">Chief Justice
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melville_Fuller" title="Melville Fuller" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Melville Fuller</a></div></td></tr><tr style="height: 2px;"><td colspan="2" style="vertical-align: top;" /></tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="navbox-list navbox-even" style="line-height: 1.3em; border-color: rgb(253, 253, 253); vertical-align: top; width: 244.6875px; padding: 0.1em 0.5em !important; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><div style="padding: 0em 0.25em;">Associate Justices
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Johnson_Field" title="Stephen Johnson Field" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Stephen J. Field</a> · <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan" title="John Marshall Harlan" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">John M. Harlan</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Gray" title="Horace Gray" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Horace Gray</a> · <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Josiah_Brewer" title="David Josiah Brewer" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">David J. Brewer</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Billings_Brown" title="Henry Billings Brown" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Henry B. Brown</a> · <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Shiras,Jr." title="George Shiras, Jr." style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">George Shiras, Jr.</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Douglass_White" title="Edward Douglass White" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Edward D. White</a> · <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Wheeler_Peckham" title="Rufus Wheeler Peckham" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Rufus W. Peckham</a></div><div style="padding: 0em 0.25em;">
</div><div style="padding: 0em 0.25em;"><table class="infobox scotus" style="font-size: 12.3199996948242px; border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); border-spacing: 3px; color: black; margin: 0.5em 0px 0.5em 1em; padding: 0.2em; clear: right; line-height: 1.2em; width: 22em; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><tbody><tr><th scope="row" style="vertical-align: top;">Majority</th><td style="vertical-align: top;">Brown, joined by Fuller, Field, Gray, Shiras, White, Peckham</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" style="vertical-align: top;">Dissent</th><td style="vertical-align: top;">Harlan</td></tr></tbody></table></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div></div></div>