Plessy v. Ferguson: The Culmination of a Judicial Avalanche

Abstract

The Plessy decision represented the final capitulation of the Union to racism. Beginning with the Slaughterhouse decision in 1873, the Supreme Court gradually whittled away the rights of blacks in a series of decisions which ended with Plessy in 1896. Yet, the Court was supposed to be the highest protector of individual rights in the United States, but between 1873 and 1896, the Court failed miserably to protect the rights of black citizens. Accordingly, the Court must take full responsibility for the destruction of Negro rights. Public opinion against the Negro was very strong in the South, but the justices were supposed to be above public opinion. Congress had extended the rights of citizenship to the newly freed slaves through the War Amendments and civil rights acts , and these statutes should have been the framework for the natural development of race relations. Instead, the Court struck down these statutes and left the Negro with "nothing but freedom." Rather than protect the positive national legislation, the Supreme Court served as a tool for the abandonment of the Negro's cause. The abandonment culminated in the Plessy decision upholding the constitutionality of segregation and sanctioning a practice previously grounded only in discrimination and racial hatred. This was the Supreme Court's greatest mistake. [From concluding section]