Arguing the Constitution: Questions of Equality - Essay Example

Arguing the Constitution: Questions of Equality When reconstruction started after the Civil War in 1865 the federal government provided some protection of civil rights of the ex-slaves, but after reconstruction ended in 1877, martial law wasn’t in effect. Jim Crow laws were enacted. These laws prohibited blacks from using the same public accommodations as whites. The ruling of the Supreme Court concerning civil rights cases stated that the Fourteenth Amendment only applied to actions of state governments; therefore individuals were free to violate the civil rights of other citizens.

Particularly, most of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was made nonbinding, which had been passed to protect African Americans. A law was passed in 1890 in Louisiana that stopped blacks from using the same accommodations on railroads as whites, even the cars had to be separate. A group of concerned people in New Orleans formed an association to repeal the law. Ultimately, Homer Plessy agreed to challenge the law. He was of one-eight African American descent and seven-eights Caucasian descent. When he boarded the train and sat in the white section he was asked to move to the black section.

He refused and they arrested him. He objected that the Louisiana law was in violation of the constitution but they refused to release him. After conviction he had to pay a $25 fine. When Plessy’s case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, his lawyers, Albion Tourge’e and Samuel F. Philips constructed their case on the Thirteenth Amendment which prohibits slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment, which “prohibits the states from abridging the ‘”privileges and immunities” of United States citizens, or denying those citizens due process or equal protection of the law (“Plessy”)”.

They argued that the law in question implied that blacks were inferior. The Supreme Court upheld the Louisiana law. One judge abstained and Justice John Marshall Harlan voiced his descent. Most of judges said that Louisiana wasn’t in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. The majority of the judges disagreed that the Louisiana statute encouraged inferiority of African Americans and stated that it upheld “social policy” (“Plessy”). The Thirteenth and fourteenth Amendments were the ones reviewed by the Supreme Court in the Plessy vs.

Ferguson case. In the case of Brown v. Board of Education Topeka (Kansas) the District Court cited the Plessy case ruling in favor of the Board of Education. The Supreme Court decision was made de jure or based on law. The court reviewed the Fourteenth Amendment. In this case it had been violated by a government agency. The ruling outlawed segregation in education because of the person’s race and made government run schools integrate blacks and whites. It stated that separate but equal public education would never afford blacks the same educational facilities and standards as whites.

In this case the Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional. On May 17, 1954 the Warren Court voted 9-0 and said, “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal (“Brown”).” This decision reversed an 1899 decision in the case of Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education. Works Cited “Brown v. Board of Education: brown-v.-board-of-education.ask.dyndns.dk” Ask us.We know answers. 2005. Wikipedia. 27 Dec. 2005 “Plessy v. Ferguson: plessy-v.-ferguson.ask.dyndns.

dk” Ask us.We know answers. 2005. Wikipedia. 27 Dec. 2005