The Plessy Case; A Legal-Historical Interpretation / Edition 1

by Charles A. Lofgren

Overview

In 1896 the U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson upheld "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" on all passenger railways within the state of Louisiana. In this account with implications for present-day America, Lofgren traces the roots of this landmark case in the post-Civil War South and pinpoints its moorings in the era's constitutional, legal, and intellectual doctrines. After reviewing de facto racial separation and the shift by southern states to legislated transportation segregation, he shows that the Fourteenth Amendment became a ready vehicle for legitimating classification by race. At the same time, scientists and social scientists were proclaiming black racial inferiority and lower courts were embracing separate-but-equal in ordinary law suits. Within this context, a group of New Orleans blacks launched a judicial challenge to Louisiana's 1890 Separate Car Law and carried the case to the Supreme Court, where the resulting opinions by Justices Henry Billings Brown and John Marshall Harlan pitted legal doctrines and "expert" opinion about race against the idea of a color-blind Constitution. Throughout his account, Lofgren probes the intellectual premises that shaped this important episode in the history of law and race in America—an episode that still raises troubling questions about racial classification and citizenship—revealing its dynamics and place in the continuum of legal change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195056846
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	10/28/1988
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Claremont McKenna College

Table of Contents

	Introduction "The Plessy Prison"	3
Chapter 1	De Facto to De Jure: Transportation Segregation in the South from the Civil War to the 1890s	7
Chapter 2	Plessy in Louisiana: The Test Cases	28
Chapter 3	Plessy in Louisiana: The Constitutional Clash	44
Chapter 4	The Constitutional Environment: Lost Origins and Judicial Deference	61
Chapter 5	The Intellectual Environment: Racist Thought in the Late Nineteenth Century	93
Chapter 6	The Transportation Law Environment: Access by Leave, Not Right	116
Chapter 7	Plessy Before the United States Supreme Court	148
Chapter 8	The Court Decides: Jim Crow Affirmed	174
Chapter 9	Speaking to the Future	196
	Notes	209
	Table of Cases	255
	Index	261

Editorial Reviews

"Richly documented, well-written....Constitutional scholars will most certainly accept Lofgren's work as the definitive study of the Plessy case."—American Historical Review

"An important work, one that belongs in every research and law library. It is essential reading for all scholars dealing with the history of constititional protections of American civil rights."—American Journal of Legal History

"An intelligent and provocative study...[that] is likely to remain definitive."—Journal of Southern History

"Well-researched and thoughtful...Deserves the attention of all those interested in civil rights law and history."—Journal of American History

"A close, valuable look at a crucial bit of history."—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher