Plessy+v.+Ferguson

Case: Plessy vs. Ferguson Year: 1896



PLESSEY V. FERGUSON
__**FACTS/BACKGROUND**__ Homer Plessy was charged for violating the Louisiana Separate Car Act. Homer Plessy was one eighth black and seven eighths white and boarded a car that was designed for whites only. He refused to leave the white car and move to the colored car. He was arrested and put in jail. 
 * __ISSUE/MAJOR QUESTION__**

The major issue was on segregation. This case brought up whether or not people should be segregated or is it was a violation of people’s rights.  **__MAJOR LAW OR RIGHTS DISCUSSED__** 13th and 14th Amendment. The thirteenth amendment abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude. After they abolished slavery people still thought that it should be legal so they split people up into two groups the whites and blacks. The blacks were not treated equally to the whites and that is why when Plessy refused to get off the white train car he was put jail. The Supreme Court said that with civil cases the fourteenth amendment only applied to the actions of the government and not to the individual citizens. The fourteenth amendment didn’t protect citizens against people who had violated their civil rights.

**__DECISION__** In a 7 to 1 decision (in which Justice David Josiah Brewer did not participate) the court rejected Pleesy’s arguments based on the Fourteenth Amendment. The Courts pretty much decided that segregation was ok as long as both the facilities are equal.

**__REASONING__** The court didn’t find a difference in quality between the whites only and blacks only train cars. That is untrue since other separate facilities were designed for blacks poorly than those designed for whites. They rejected his views on the fourteenth amendment with a 7 to 1 vote.


 * __IMPACT__**

It made segregation legal again after many years, spread the move toward segregation which had started in the South, and the country once again started to split its facilities into two (one for white people, one for everyone else).

**__DISSENTING ARGUMENT__** Justice John Marshall Harlan disagreed with the result and said that in the respect of civil rights all citizens are created equal before law. 