Our Constitution is Color-Blind

[Valin]

Letters Fron An Ohio Farmer:

 

 

To My Fellow Citizens:

 

A prominent theme of these letters is that—to inherit and pass on to the next generation the legacy of freedom bequeathed to us—Americans must understand and take to heart the idea of political freedom that has been at stake in all the great episodes of American history. Today is a fitting time to reflect on one of those episodes.

 

On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy boarded a train in New Orleans bound for Covington, Louisiana. When the conductor saw his ticket, he demanded that he move. When Plessy wouldn’t, he was arrested, tried, convicted, and fined $25. His offense? Violating Louisiana's "Separate Car Act" by sitting in a "whites only" railroad car. Plessy and his supporters appealed the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that Louisiana's "Jim Crow" law violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits a state from denying "equal protection of the laws" to any person within its jurisdiction. Congress had sent the 14th Amendment to the states for ratification on June 13, 1866,146 years ago today.

 

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court didn't agree with Mr. Plessy, and voted by a 7-1 margin that racially segregated facilities were permissible under the Constitution, as long as the facilities were "separate but equal." It was one of the worst decisions the Court ever made. But it did raise a question that Americans – and the Supreme Court – are still asking: What does it mean to be equal under the law?

 

The meaning of equality had been the central question for Americans ever since our Founders first declared in 1776 the self-evident truth that "all men are created equal." In previous letters, I have noted that the Founders understood equality to mean that everyone has the same natural rights – that is, everyone has the same God-given rights to life, liberty, and property. We should all be free from violence to our life and health, be free to run our own lives, and be free to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Obviously, slavery violated all of those principles and had to be abolished if America was fully to live up to them. In 1865, as a result of the Union victory in the Civil War, it was abolished by the 13th Amendment. But the submission of the 14th Amendment to the states in 1866 raised a different question: once slavery is abolished, how does our basic natural equality translate into law and the Constitution? What does it mean to have "equal protection of the laws," as the 14th Amendment says?

 

(Snip)