Plessy V. Ferguson Case Analysis

During the debates over the Reconstruction amendments, I was particularly interested in the controversy about the ambiguous compromise of rights that the 14th amendment declared to protect with its Equal Protection Clause. Equality is difficult to define with the various interpretations in precedent and it has proven to still be a continued controversy today. More specifically, the controversy that has persisted is the issue of whether the State or Federal government would be the ones to decide who would protect equality and define it. The controversial views over equality in accordance to the 14th amendment persisted in the cases of Plessy and the political equality over social equality.
The outcome of the Plessy v. Ferguson case with the …show more content…
Justice Brown further said “social equality must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other’s merits, and a voluntary consent of the individual” justifying that the state was using its police power to keep the races apart for the safety and morality of society (449). Yes this was a power of the state but was it truly delivering equality in action? It is a question that can be referenced back to the framers and their intentions with the word of ‘equality’. It is controversial to believe that the framers intended ‘equality’ to have different definitions for different groups of citizens, it seems contrary to the name itself ‘Equal Protection Clause’. Rather the framers stated in the final line, “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” and did not make a distinction that the equal protection should vary in definition from person to person. There was a clear impact on the morality of the African-American of that same society from being treated as inferiors. Therefore, the police power that aims at protecting the morality of society was not fulfilling its aim and the court failed to see the …show more content…
Same-sex couple had proven to be as a stable and equal as opposite-sex couples and the state was not legitimately protecting the morality of society by putting one group down at a lower level when it came to rights, recognition, and protection. The Obergefell case restored the definition of equality to be generally applied that now meant the recognition of same-sex couples under the federal law. Although at the time of ratification the controversy did not involve the dispute of whether same-sex couples would be protected under this amendment, this case shows the continuation of the disagreement in what equality entails. These cases clarified that the constitution was not only color-blind but also blind to sexual