The Supreme Court: The Plessy V. Ferguson Case

Superior Essays
One of the major parts of our government is the Supreme Court. In order to understand what and how a Supreme Court functions, it is essential to comprehend what a judicial court is. The judicial court’s main function is to make sure that all of the laws listed in the Constitution are followed and enforced. In addition, the main solution to many conflicts in cases can be found with the help of the Judicial Court. The Supreme Court is exactly what is appears and sounds to be. The word supreme allows everyone to understand that it the highest ranking court provided in the United States. The Supreme Court position is above all other courts. Initially, there were only 6 members in the Supreme Court as indicated by the Judiciary Act of 1789 . Throughout …show more content…
Ferguson case was a major case for the Supreme Court of The United States. The plaintiff, Homer Plessy, sat in a Whites only train car and refused to move. Homer Plessy appeared to their eyes as a Caucasian. However, he had a small amount of African American ancestry and was banned by law to sit at these labeled reserved seats. As a result, Plessy was arrested because of his refusal to change train cars. Plessy took legal action and claimed that this law was unconstitutional. He claimed that this type of treatment was a way of legal discrimination. In this court case the phrase “separate but equal” was born. According to the website, History, the law “between the two races did not conflict with the 13th Amendment forbidding involuntary servitude”(2). The court professed that labeling individuals did not mean they were being treated differently. The quality of the facilities that were provided to the African Americans truly demonstrated this treatment as type of discrimination. This was a very important case in which the Supreme Court set these segregation laws and backed them up with the ideology listed …show more content…
One of these views is called “originalism”. Originalism consists of the idea that the way the Constitution should be portrayed is the exact same way in which it was created. Originalists believe that the Constitution should have the same meaning as when it was made. Most of the people who think this way claim that the Constitution has been preserved for a reason this entire time. On the contrary, there are people who believe in the philosophy that the constitution should be a “living document”. Their beliefs revolve around the idea that there is no point in following the Constitution’s old meaning. They claim that our current society and way of living is not the same as it was when this significant document was created. The individuals who are supporters of this reasoning think that it should be able to adapt to the new circumstances the current centuries provide them. In my opinion, the originalist philosophy is better. The Constitution plays a major role in the foundation of the government. If the Constitution were to change, its original significance would be completely lost. Once the citizens of The United States deem it acceptable to tweak the Constitution, they may never stop. As the witness, Justice Antonin Scalia, on a CBN news article claims, “if judges start to redefine the Constitutional text according to their own views, then they have rendered the

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    These cases are very important in the American History. Plessy v. Ferguson In the Plessy v. Ferguson case, the Supreme Court favored Ferguson,…

    • 1548 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Karlee Sunday Mrs. Holt Due-10/8/17 Law Essay Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v Board of Education, two of the most landmarking cases that have changed the ways of the U.S. The case of Plessy v. Ferguson started with a man who opposed to discrimination of race, Brown v. Board of Education repealing the Pv. F case and making the final change on discrimination, both cases have similarities changing the way of human history, and the Supreme Court plays a big role in making the final decision. History is made by the people that want to make a change in the world.…

    • 1298 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the mid 1800’s segregation played a big role in society. All public areas such as restrooms restaurants and schools were separate but not equal like the law said it should be. Even the railways were segregated, there were different railway cars for blacks and whites. The only exception was that nurses working on children of the opposite color were allowed to sit in the different compartments. A penalty of twenty-five dollars or up to twenty days in jail was the consequence for sitting in the opposite cart.…

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Cordell Adams Holt Legal systems 8 October 2017 Plessy v.s Ferguson and Brown v.s Board of education Huge changes to equal rights in America all started in 1892 from two cases, first Homère Patrice Adolphe Plessy v.s judge John H. Ferguson followed by Oliver Brown v.s Board of Education. The Plessy v.s Ferguson case first created the idea of separate but equal in 1896, but in 1954 that changed, in a good way due to the popular case known as Brown v.s Board of education. These cases Plessy v.s Ferguson and Brown v.s Board of education both severely impacted segregation in America, the reason why we are not splitting up bus seats and schools based on race. First, 1892 the change started with a court decision “separate but equal from…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Supreme Court case, Plessy vs Ferguson was upheld in the year of 1896. This case stemmed, or was brought about as an abrupt incident in which, an African American train passenger, named Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim…

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Brown v. Board of Education and Plessy v. Ferguson are two historical events that have had an outstanding impact to the United States. In the next few paragraphs I will explain a few main points about what happened during their cases. Such as what the cases are about, why they chose to create the case and how it’s affecting the society, the decision for the majority and minority’s decision on how the case will take place for the citizens, and never less, the key precedents. Furthermore, I will go on to explain about the Plessy v. Ferguson case first. Plessy v. Ferguson was an astonishing case on wanting to be “separate but equal”.…

    • 818 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    14th Amendment Dbq

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Some reasons for this ideology is that there are fewer margins for judges to allow their own personal beliefs to dictate a decision and it further supports the amendment process. The purpose of the amendment process is to allow changes to the document by an elected body of representatives as time continues. Thus, if society believes a change is needed, then it should be through the democratic way rather than decided by unelected officials. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia is a notable example of an originalist. In a fairly recent case, Obergefell v. Hodges, he argued that state bans on same-sex marriage were not unconstitutional nor did they violate the fourteenth amendment.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    1980 Dbq

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Furthermore, Homer Plessy was arrested when he sat in a whites only railroad car because he was only one-eight black. In 1896, the government passed the Jim Crow laws which stated the idea of “separate but equal” based in Plessy v. Ferguson. The government believed that by providing the separated facilities, it would provided “peace and order” to the community. It showed that the government wanted people to understand that they tried to solve the problem to maintain equality by separating. The actions that government made did not actually provide equality for African Americans.…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An article written by Alex McBride of PBS.org expresses how,“the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of a Louisiana law passed in 1890 ‘providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races.’” Due to the fact that slavery was abolished fairly recently(about 25 years before the law was passed) it would make sense for people, especially in the south, to still harbor discriminatory opinions on people of African descent, this tension lead to the creation of this law and the conflict between Plessy and Ferguson. While on the topic of race and segregation, Mr. McBride also reported how before the case Brown v. BoE,“large portions of the United States had racially segregated schools, made legal by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which held that segregated public facilities were constitutional so long as the black and white facilities were equal to each other,” in a different article for PBS.org. Considering that such a large portion of the United States allowed racially segregated schools as a result of the P v. F case, it is made painfully clear how direct the connection is between the cases when comparing them based on the topic they cover. Although the P v. F case was originally a standalone case about an African American man sitting in a white-only car, it created a doctrine that claimed all aspects of life were deemed equal so long as the…

    • 1573 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Plessy was part black he had to be separated from the all whites on the train, but they still had equal rights, blacks were allowed to ride the train just not near the whites. Same thing with Brown vs board of education. “Landmark Cases of the U.S. Supreme Court.” Summary of the Decision | www.Streetlaw.org, landmarkcases.org/en/Page/522/Summary_of_the_Decision. says the kids were separated by their race, but they had very similar things. For example, their buildings were the same built, they both took buses to schools, and they learned the same things.…

    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nevertheless, in 1896 the court case Plessy v. Ferguson proved to the courts to allow state laws requiring separate facilities for African American’s and whites. Segregation violated the fourteenth amendment of equal protection before the law. There was racial segregation in; schools, railroad cars, hospitals, waiting rooms, hotels, and cemeteries. African American’s couldn’t raise their voices in the presence of white people. Some states didn’t allow taxi drivers to transport one the one race at one…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1963, the year The Fire Next Time was published, The Birmingham Campaign took place. Originally called Project C, activists within the city joined together to launch "a massive direct action campaign to attack the city’s segregation system by putting pressure on Birmingham’s merchants during the Easter season, the second biggest shopping season of the year." (http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/) The campaign used peaceful protest measures such as lunch counter sit-ins along with a boycott of downtown merchants to pressure the merchants, which expanded to a "march on the county building to register voters" (SAME AS ABOVE) resulting in hundreds being arrested. It wasn't until April 12th, Good Friday, that Martin Luther King Jr. was…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    People go through life trying to make it work, but it is amazing how two little cases can change how we live together as one nation. Plessy vs. Ferguson goes back to April 1896 and what this case made for the future, then Brown vs. Board of Education that goes back to December 1952 and what this case did for the future, finally what kind of impact these two cases had on the nation. It has to take two cases to change the way people looked at the word “Equal”, and what it truly meant. Going back to the 1800’s starts the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson. Plessy vs. Ferguson case is a case that set a precedent of “separate but equal” was not the way we were suppose to be looking at black and white races.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Plessy v. Ferguson The Plessy V. Ferguson was a case between Homer Plessy and Judge John H. Ferguson and the law. This case had to do with Homer refusing to follow the orders of what is said to be the law. But the law was the one who was violating two amendments made to give rights to African-American and blacks. This also had a big impact on "Separate but Equal".…

    • 329 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Supreme Court Importance

    • 298 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Supreme Court is the central government power; the foundation of the land where it receives its power from the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution, in retrospect, addresses all American's and is an agreement that ensures individual expression and fulfils this promise through the implementation of a vote based government in which the individuals who compose and translate the law must also obey it. The Constitution formulates the Court as an independent legal body whose choices are protected from the impact of public opinion and other branches of government. Rather, the Court is held to a higher standard governed by sovereignty to the law. The Constitution helps the Court to settle the debate, paying little mind to who the individuals are,…

    • 298 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays