Letter of the Law: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

In 1892, Homer Plessy, a citizen of mixed descent, was convicted for refusing to move from his seat in the "Whites Only" car of an East Louisiana Railway train. Ruling that separate but equal facilities did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict of John Ferguson, the criminal district court judge of Orleans. This led to decades of segregation that denied African Americans their rights. The decision was eventually overturned in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.This list contains words from the majority opinion written by Henry Brown. Read the full text here.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. accommodation
    living quarters provided for public convenience
    The first section of the statute enacts that all railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in this State shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races by providing two or more passenger coaches for each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger coaches by a partition so as to secure separate accommodations; Provided, That this section shall not be construed to apply to street railroads.
  2. construe
    make sense of; assign a meaning to
    Provided, That this section shall not be construed to apply to street railroads.
  3. lieu
    the post or function properly occupied or served by another
    ...any passenger insisting on going into a coach or compartment to which by race he does not belong shall be liable to a fine of twenty-five dollars, or in lieu thereof to imprisonment for a period of not more than twenty days in the parish prison...
  4. proviso
    a stipulated condition
    The third section provides penalties for the refusal or neglect of the officers, directors, conductors, and employees of railway companies to comply with the act, with a proviso that "nothing in this act shall be construed as applying to nurses attending children of the other race."
  5. aver
    declare or affirm solemnly and formally as true
    Neither in the information nor plea was his particular race or color averred.
  6. chattel
    personal property, as opposed to real estate
    Slavery implies involuntary servitude—a state of bondage; the ownership of mankind as a chattel, or at least the control of the labor and services of one man for the benefit of another, and the absence of a legal right to the disposal of his own person, property and services.
  7. onerous
    burdensome or difficult to endure
    It was intimated, however, in that case that this amendment was regarded by the statesmen of that day as insufficient to protect the colored race from certain laws which had been enacted in the Southern States, imposing upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens and curtailing their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value; and that the Fourteenth Amendment was devised to meet this exigency.
  8. exigency
    a sudden unforeseen crisis that requires immediate action
    It was intimated, however, in that case that this amendment was regarded by the statesmen of that day as insufficient to protect the colored race from certain laws which had been enacted in the Southern States, imposing upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens and curtailing their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value; and that the Fourteenth Amendment was devised to meet this exigency.
  9. redress
    act of correcting an error or a fault or an evil
    ...refusing accommodations to colored people cannot be justly regarded as imposing any badge of slavery or servitude upon the applicant, but only as involving an ordinary civil injury, properly cognizable by the laws of the State and presumably subject to redress by those laws until the contrary appears.
  10. distinction
    a discrimination between things as different
    A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races—a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color—has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or reestablish a state of involuntary servitude.
  11. abridge
    lessen, diminish, or curtail
    By the Fourteenth Amendment, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are made citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside, and the States are forbidden from making or enforcing any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law...
  12. distinguish
    mark as different
    The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but, in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.
  13. inferiority
    the state of being lesser
    Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power.
  14. paternal
    characteristic of a father
    ...it will not warrant the assertion that men and women are legally clothed with the same civil and political powers, and that children and adults are legally to have the same functions and be subject to the same treatment, but only that the rights of all, as they are settled and regulated by law, are equally entitled to the paternal consideration and protection of the law for their maintenance and security.
  15. subversive
    in opposition to an established system or government
    It does not authorize Congress to create a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights, but to provide modes of redress against the operation of state laws and the action of state officers, executive or judicial, when these are subversive of the fundamental rights specified in the amendment.
  16. prohibition
    the action of forbidding
    Positive rights and privileges are undoubtedly secured by the Fourteenth Amendment, but they are secured by way of prohibition against state laws and state proceedings affecting those rights and privileges, and by power given to Congress to legislate for the purpose of carrying such prohibition into effect, and such legislation must necessarily be predicated upon such supposed state laws or state proceedings, and be directed to the correction of their operation and effect.
  17. predicate
    involve as a necessary condition or consequence
    Positive rights and privileges are undoubtedly secured by the Fourteenth Amendment, but they are secured by way of prohibition against state laws and state proceedings affecting those rights and privileges, and by power given to Congress to legislate for the purpose of carrying such prohibition into effect, and such legislation must necessarily be predicated upon such supposed state laws or state proceedings, and be directed to the correction of their operation and effect.
  18. determine
    reach, make, or come to a decision about something
    The power to assign to a particular coach obviously implies the power to determine to which race the passenger belongs, as well as the power to determine who, under the laws of the particular State, is to be deemed a white and who a colored person.
  19. reputation
    the general estimation that the public has for a person
    It is claimed by the plaintiff in error that, in any mixed community, the reputation of belonging to the dominant race, in this instance the white race, is property in the same sense that a right of action or of inheritance is property.
  20. deprive
    take away possessions from someone
    If he be a white man and assigned to a colored coach, he may have his action for damages against the company for being deprived of his so-called property. Upon the other hand, if he be a colored man and be so assigned, he has been deprived of no property, since he is not lawfully entitled to the reputation of being a white man.
  21. reasonable
    marked by sound judgment
    So far, then, as a conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, the case reduces itself to the question whether the statute of Louisiana is a reasonable regulation, and, with respect to this, there must necessarily be a large discretion on the part of the legislature.
  22. arbitrary
    based on or subject to individual discretion or preference
    ...the carrying on of public laundries within the limits of the municipality violated the provisions of the Constitution of the United States if it conferred upon the municipal authorities arbitrary power, at their own will and without regard to discretion, in the legal sense of the term...
  23. discretion
    power of making choices unconstrained by external agencies
    ...the carrying on of public laundries within the limits of the municipality violated the provisions of the Constitution of the United States if it conferred upon the municipal authorities arbitrary power, at their own will and without regard to discretion, in the legal sense of the term...
  24. propriety
    correct behavior
    ...to give or withhold consent as to persons or places without regard to the competency of the persons applying or the propriety of the places selected for the carrying on of the business.
  25. preservation
    the activity of protecting something from loss or danger
    In determining the question of reasonableness, it is at liberty to act with reference to the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their comfort and the preservation of the public peace and good order.
  26. obnoxious
    causing disapproval or protest
    Gauged by this standard, we cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable, or more obnoxious to the Fourteenth Amendment than the acts of Congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the District of Columbia, the constitutionality of which does not seem to have been questioned, or the corresponding acts of state legislatures.
  27. fallacy
    a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning
    We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority.
  28. construction
    an interpretation of a text or action
    If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.
  29. relegate
    assign to a lower position
    The argument necessarily assumes that if, as has been more than once the case and is not unlikely to be so again, the colored race should become the dominant power in the state legislature, and should enact a law in precisely similar terms, it would thereby relegate the white race to an inferior position.
  30. acquiesce
    agree or express agreement
    We imagine that the white race, at least, would not acquiesce in this assumption.
  31. prejudice
    a partiality preventing objective consideration of an issue
    The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races.
  32. affinity
    a natural attraction or feeling of kinship
    If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other's merits, and a voluntary consent of individuals.
  33. endowed
    provided or supplied or equipped with
    When the government, therefore, has secured to each of its citizens equal rights before the law and equal opportunities for improvement and progress, it has accomplished the end for which it was organized, and performed all of the functions respecting social advantages with which it is endowed.
  34. eradicate
    destroy completely, as if down to the roots
    Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation.
  35. preponderance
    superiority in power or influence
    It is true that the question of the proportion of colored blood necessary to constitute a colored person, as distinguished from a white person, is one upon which there is a difference of opinion in the different States, some holding that any visible admixture of black blood stamps the person as belonging to the colored race (State v. Chaver, 5 Jones [N.C.] 1, p. 11); others that it depends upon the preponderance of blood (Gray v. State, 4 Ohio 354; Monroe v. Collins, 17 Ohio St. 665)...
Created on Tue Feb 21 11:16:53 EST 2017 (updated Wed Sep 11 09:41:29 EDT 2019)

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