540 HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. [June 19, 
In ’ Plessy vs. Ferguson the question was the constitutionality of 
a law requiring all railroad companies in Louisiana to provide 
equal but separate accommodations for white and colored passen- 
gers, and that no person be allowed to occupy seats other than that 
assigned, and requiring train officers to assign passengers their 
place according to race and color, and fixing a penalty for not 
obeying such assignments. Plessy had been assigned to a coach, 
but had insisted on taking one in which he did not belong. Such 
was the charge. It made no mention of his race. He made appli- 
cation to the Supreme Court of the state for a writ of prohibition 
to stop such proceedings against him, alleging that the law was un- 
constitutional. It held the law valid, and he procured a writ of 
error. He claimed to be seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth 
African; that the African admixture was not discernible, and that 
he was entitled to all the privileges and immunities of a citizen of 
the United States of the white race ; that, so thinking, he took the 
white man’s coaca, was ordered to take another provided for col- 
ored persons, refused, and was ejected by the aid of a police officer. 
He claimed the act was contrary to both the thirteenth amendment 
and to that clause of the fourteenth which prohibits certain legisla- 
tion on the part of the states. The statute was sustained. The 
court found that merely providing a separate car for colored people 
and requiring them to take it was not depriving them of any right 
secured by either amendment. 
Justice Brown in the opinion cites a long array of decisions from 
state and federal courts upholding such enactments. Justice Harlan 
assails the act as a violation of liberty in not permitting white and 
black persons who desire to do so to travel together. He suggests 
that this law is not very consistent with the reiterated holding of 
the court that black and white jurors must be permitted to serve on 
the same cases, and suggests that some one may be proposing a law 
to separate them by some kind of a partition while so serving. 
In ?St. Louis & S$. F. Ry. Co. vs, Matthews old principles re- 
turn again in the holding that a state law making railway com- 
panies liable for all damages caused by fires starting from their 
locomotives is valid. The court finds that under the ancient law of 
England all persons were liable for damage arising from fires of 
their own lighting, and that the statutes in this country had uni- 
1768 U. S., 537 (1896). 2 765 UW. S:, 1 (1897). 
