Writing the Majority Opinion

Today I began writing the majority opinion for the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. I do not think I have ever enjoyed myself more writing an opinion. It makes me giddy when I think of writing the exact opposite of what Justice Harlan complained to the other justices and I last week. In the last few hours, I have already disproved Tourgée and Plessy legally, making their Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment points seem completely invalid. Now I must prepare to go on a tirade about how social rights cannot be granted by the government, only the people, and that we have already made all races as equal as possible. Ha! I love my profession.

Justice Harlan has said that what I write in my decision will shape our country for the next century, or possibly forever. If this is so, then the outstanding level of effort I have put in to my opinion is more than satisfactory.

I, the Great Justice Henry Billings Brown

Here is an excerpt of what I have written so far:

"The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power..."