The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 — John Shaqi
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921Various
History
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
In the _Louisville Railway Company_ v. _Mississippi_,[31] however, in
1899, the court, evidently yielding to southern public opinion,
reversed itself by the decision that an interstate carrier could not
run a train through Mississippi without attaching thereto a separate
car for Negroes and had the audacity to argue that this is not an
interference with interstate commerce.[32] To show how inconsistent
this interpretation was one should bear in mind that in _Hall_ v.
_DeCuir_ the court had held that this was exactly what a State could
not do in that the statute acted not upon business through local
instruments to be employed after coming into the State, but directly
upon business as it comes into the State from without or goes out from
within, although it purported only to control the carrier when engaged
within the State. It necessarily influenced the conduct of the carrier
to some extent in the management of his business throughout his
entire voyage. "No carrier of passengers," said the court in _Hall_ v.
_DeCuir_, "can conduct his business with satisfaction to himself, or
comfort to those employing him, if on one side of a State line his
passengers, both white and colored, must be permitted to occupy the
same cabin, and on the other to be kept separate. Uniformity in the
regulation by which he is to be governed from one end to the other of
his route is a necessity in his business, and to secure it, Congress,
which is untrammelled by State lines, has been invested with exclusive
legislative power of determining what such regulation should be."
Giving the opinion in the Mississippi case, however, Justice Brewer
said: "It has been often held by this court that there is a commerce
wholly within the State which is not subject to the constitutional
provision and the distinctions between commerce among the States and
the other class of commerce between citizens of a single State and
conducted within its limits exclusively is one which has been fully
recognized in this court, although it may not be always easy, where
the lines of these classes approach each other, to distinguish between
the one and the other."[33] He might have added some other comment to
the effect that this court will not definitely draw the line of
distinction between such classes of commerce since it desires to leave
adequate room for evasion, because it had been unusually easy to find
such a line in cases in which the rights of Negroes were concerned and
such definite interpretation might interfere with the rights of white
men. Justices Harlan and Bradley dissented on the grounds that the law
imposed a burden upon an interstate carrier in that he would be fined
if he did not attach an additional car for race discrimination, and
that the opinion was repugnant to the principles set forth in that of
_Hall_ v. _DeCuir_.
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