It shall please your honors, and the people here,
We have met here today not to deal with transportation only, but to resolve a question of constitutional polity, a question of law, a question of immemorial usage, of the rights of the states to regulate the health and comfort of its citizens. We do not seek to deny any man his rights; we seek to preserve the rights of the people of the states and of the whole people of the nation, to maintain the separation established as an admitted policy of the states and nation for a hundred years, and this the people began, when they left to their own responsibility, to do: that voluntary separation, without which nothing about it could stand, has had the effect of keeping within limits of the hands of Congress, those acknowledged that they still held seeming petty considerations a race among the men, who to a traveler is just being a bidette a refund in what does not belong to him but the effects of a local and remote separation in 1896.
At its core, the case hinges on the Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890 a statute that in effect mandates separate but equal treatment of white and colored passengers in railway cars. This law merely prevents Mr. Plessy and other citizens from traveling. It doesn’t take away his civil rights. It instead reaffirms a well-settled social rule: that for the sake of harmony, public order and comfort, some separation when classified properly is the law.For its part, the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees each and every one of us the “equal protection of the laws.” But let’s be clear: equal protection does not mean social equality by fiat. ** And the amendment was never supposed to mingle the races in every situation of life. It was to secure an equality of legal rights, not to introduce for the first time in our history, mad schemes of abolition or amalgamation for the races.Nothing in the Constitution prohibits separation. It is a prohibition on *INEQUALITY UNDER THE LAW. And for Louisiana railway facilities: The seats and means of conveyance (as far as the latter are public or common carriers) be provided for the two races, not in the least inferior to those provided for them in any other States where the two races receive accommodations collectively that the cars are separate does not make rank or place of seating unequal. That’s not discrimination; that’s organizing on the basis of rational difference between groups within our society.
If we allow distinct schools for children of different races, distinct churches, distinct restaurants and even distinct neighborhoods, then why not distinct railway cars within our Constitution? “Separate but equal” is not the same thing as punishment or insult. It is just a reflection of the realities and preferences of the public which the government has the responsibility to police in the interest of all. Also, the state of Louisiana has the constitutional authority and power under the 10th Amendment to enact laws in the interest of public safety, peace, and comfort. This granted that department the power to have separate accommodations "as, in its discretion, it deemed necessary." To say that would be to disallow the sovereignty of the state and enable one man Plessy, in this case to overturn the will of the people. Let’s also acknowledge that Mr. Plessy didn’t accidentally break this law. He did this intentionally as political strategy to challenge segregation laws. This is not about punishing someone for the color of their skin, but for knowingly breaking a legal statute that was created for all people. As a matter of fact, Mr. Plessy is of the color of mixed blood and had the appearance of a white man and he made the fact known to the conductor when he took his seat in a car for whites in disobedience of the law. Members of the jury, this case isn’t about cruelty and it isn’t about exclusion. It's a matter of perpetuating peace, holding each state as having rights, and not preventing liberal social mores from being regulated by law. Segregation is not inherently unequal. It is a balancing one that keeps everyone’s rights intact, while keeping the order society relies upon. For these reasons, we hereby request, that this court respectfully sustain the constitutionality of the Separate Car Act and recognize that that the policy of “separate but equal” represents a just and reasonable application of the nation’s founding values.
Sources
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/plessy-v-ferguson
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/supreme-court-case-library/plessy-v-ferguson
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