Plessy v. Ferguson

Majority reasoning

The majority held that the Thirteenth Amendment only abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, and a law requiring separate but equal accommodations does not create a state of bondage or servitude. On the Fourteenth Amendment, the majority reasoned that its purpose was to establish legal and political equality between the races, but not to force "social equality" or a "commingling of the two races" that is unsatisfactory to either. The Court pointed to widely accepted laws creating separate schools for Black and white children as proof that government-mandated separation of races does not by itself imply inferiority of either race. The majority further reasoned that if separation makes Black passengers feel inferior, "it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it." Finally, the Court found the Louisiana law a "reasonable" exercise of state police power because legislatures may act with reference to "established usages, customs and traditions" and public order, and reasoned that law cannot alone create social equality between races.

Dissent reasoning

Justice Harlan argued that the Constitution is "color-blind" and does not permit any government to classify citizens by race when their civil rights are at stake. He contended the real purpose of the law was not neutral but was designed specifically to exclude Black passengers from cars used by white passengers, and that this amounted to a "badge of servitude" prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment. Harlan warned that the same reasoning used to justify separate train cars could be extended to justify segregating streets, courtrooms, and juries, undermining the equal citizenship guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. He rejected the majority's "reasonableness" framework, arguing courts should not evaluate the wisdom of legislation once its constitutionality is established, but here found the statute unconstitutional on its face because it interfered with citizens' personal liberty to travel freely regardless of race. He predicted the ruling would prove "quite as pernicious" as the Dred Scott decision and would encourage further discriminatory state laws and racial hostility, rather than promoting racial harmony.