Appendix C. Case Law

• Author: Kevin J. Fandl
• Profession: Director of the Global Legal Education Institute
• Pages: 127-166

Case Law

Appendix C

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)

Argued April 18, 1896

Decided May 18, 1896

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT

OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA

Syllabus

The statute of Louisiana, acts of 1890, c. 111, requiring railway

companies carrying passengers in their coaches in that State, to pro-

vide equal, but separate, accommodations for the white and col-

ored 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; and providing that no

person shall be permitted to occupy seats in coaches other than the

ones assigned to them, on account of the race they belong to; and

requiring the officer of the passenger train to assign each passenger

to the coach or compartment assigned for the race to which he or

she belongs; and imposing fines or imprisonment upon passengers

insisting on going into a coach or compartment other than the one

set aside for the race to which he or she belongs; and conferring

upon officers of the train power to refuse to carry on the train pas-

sengers refusing to occupy the coach or compartment assigned to

them, and exempting the railway company from liability for such

refusal, are not in conflict with the provisions either of the Thir-

teenth Amendment or of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Consti-

tution of the United States.

This was a petition for writs of prohibition and certiorari, origi-

nally filed in the Supreme Court of the State by Plessy, the plaintiff

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in error, against the Hon. John H. Ferguson, judge of the criminal

District Court for the parish of Orleans, and setting forth in sub-

stance the following facts:

That petitioner was a citizen of the United States and a resident

of the State of Louisiana, of mixed descent, in the proportion of

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 recognition, right, privilege and immunity se-

cured to the citizens of the United States of the white race by its

Constitution and laws; that, on June 7, 1892, he engaged and paid

for a first-class passage on the East Louisiana Railway from New

Orleans to Covington, in the same State, and thereupon entered a

passenger train, and took possession of a vacant seat in a coach

where passengers of the white race were accommodated; that such

railroad company was incorporated by the laws of Louisiana as a

common carrier, and was not authorized to distinguish between citi-

zens according to their race. But, notwithstanding this, petitioner

was required by the conductor, under penalty of ejection from said

train and imprisonment, to vacate said coach and occupy another

seat in a coach assigned by said company for persons not of the

white race, and for no other reason than that petitioner was of the

colored race; that, upon petitioner’s refusal to comply with such

order, he was, with the aid of a police officer, forcibly ejected from

said coach and hurried off to and imprisoned in the parish jail of

New Orleans, and there held to answer a charge made by such of-

ficer to the effect that he was guilty of having criminally violated an

act of the General Assembly of the State, approved July 10, 1890,

in such case made and provided.

That petitioner was subsequently brought before the recorder

of the city for preliminary examination and committed for trial to

the criminal District Court for the parish of Orleans, where an infor-

mation was filed against him in the matter above set forth, for a

violation of the above act, which act the petitioner affirmed to be

null and void, because in conflict with the Constitution of the United

States; that petitioner interposed a plea to such information based

upon the unconstitutionality of the act of the General Assembly, to

which the district attorney, on behalf of the State, filed a demurrer;

that, upon issue being joined upon such demurrer and plea, the

Case Law

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court sustained the demurrer, overruled the plea, and ordered peti-

tioner to plead over to the facts set forth in the information, and

that, unless the judge of the said court be enjoined by a writ of

prohibition from further proceeding in such case, the court will pro-

ceed to fine and sentence petitioner to imprisonment, and thus de-

prive him of his constitutional rights set forth in his said plea,

notwithstanding the unconstitutionality of the act under which he

was being prosecuted; that no appeal lay from such sentence, and

petitioner was without relief or remedy except by writs of prohibi-

tion and certiorari. Copies of the information and other proceed-

ings in the criminal District Court were annexed to the petition as

an exhibit.

Upon the filing of this petition, an order was issued upon the

respondent to show cause why a writ of prohibition should not is-

sue and be made perpetual, and a further order that the record of

the proceedings had in the criminal cause be certified and transmit-

ted to the Supreme Court.

To this order the respondent made answer, transmitting a certi-

fied copy of the proceedings, asserting the constitutionality of the

law, and averring that, instead of pleading or admitting that he be-

longed to the colored race, the said Plessy declined and refused,

either by pleading or otherwise, to admit that he was in any sense or

in any proportion a colored man.

The case coming on for a hearing before the Supreme Court,

that court was of opinion that the law under which the prosecution

was had was constitutional, and denied the relief prayed for by the

petitioner. Ex parte Plessy, 45 La. Ann. 80. Whereupon petitioner

prayed for a writ of error from this court, which was allowed by the

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

MR. JUSTICE BROWN, after stating the case, delivered the

opinion of the court.

This case turns upon the constitutionality of an act of the Gen-

eral 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 first section of the statute enacts: