The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921Various
History
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
The United States Supreme Court finally reached the position of
following the decision of _Ex Parte Plessy_ which justified the
discrimination in railway cars on the grounds that it is not a badge
of slavery contrary to the Thirteenth Amendment. This decision, in
short, is: So long, at least, as the facilities or accommodations
provided are substantially equal, statutes providing separate cars for
the races do not abridge any privilege or immunity of citizens or
otherwise contravene the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States
Constitution. In such matters equality and not identity or community
of accommodations is the extreme test of conformity to the
requirements of the amendment. The regulation of domestic commerce is
as exclusively a State function as the regulation of interstate
commerce is a Federal function. The separate car law is an exercise of
police power in the interest of public order, peace and comfort. It is
a matter of legislative power and discretion with which Federal courts
cannot interfere.
In _Hennington_ v. _Georgia_,[34] it was later emphasized that it had
been held that legislative enactments of the States, passed under the
admitted police powers, and having a real relation to the domestic
peace, order, health, and safety of their people, but which by their
necessary operation, affect, to some extent, or for a limited time,
the conduct of commerce among the States, are yet not invalid by force
alone of the grant of power of Congress to regulate such commerce;
and, if not obnoxious to some other constitutional provision or
destructive of some right secured by the fundamental law, are to be
respected in the courts of the Union until they are superseded and
displaced by some act of Congress passed in execution of power granted
to it by the Constitution. Of course, there was no other provision to
which such laws could be contrary after the Supreme Court had whittled
away the war amendments.
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