Dissenting Opinion: Plessy
v. Ferguson [1896]
Justice
John Marshall Harlan
It
was said in argument that the statute of Louisiana does not discriminate
against either race, but prescribes a rule applicable alike to white and
colored citizens. But this argument does not meet the difficulty. Every one knows that the statute in question had its origin
in the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars
occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or
assigned to white persons. . . . No one would be so wanting
in candor as to assert the contrary. . . . 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. . . . 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. . . . The arbitrary
separation of citizens on the basis of race, while they are on a public
highway, is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and
the equality before the law established by the Constitution.