Hall v. Decuir
Hall v. Decuir, 95 U.S. 485 (1878), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. In Hall, the court held that a Louisiana statute which authorized an award of damages to Josephine Decuir, a Black woman, for racial discrimination she experienced on a steamboat, unconstitutionally interfered with interstate commerce.[1]
Decuir herself was not traveling interstate: she was going from New Orleans to Pointe Coupee Parish, where she owned a sugar plantation.[2] Josephine, who was designated a Creole, and her husband Antoine (deceased by the time of the case), were some of the wealthiest people of color in the United States at the time.[3]
The statute at issue in Hall was an attempt by the Louisiana legislature to regulate the interstate steamboat carrier by requiring that carrier to allow access by all interstate passengers to its accommodations without regard to race.[4] The majority opinion, by Morrison Waite, sought to avoid conflicting state laws with regard to interstate transit.[5] The court thus held that Louisiana civil rights law unconstitutionally interfered with the federal power over interstate commerce.[6][7]
Joseph W. Singer argues that Hall marked the beginning of a phase in Supreme Court jurisprudence that led to Plessy v. Ferguson.[8][9]
References
- ^ Cottrol, Robert J. (2009). "Hall v. Decuir". In Hall, Kermit L.; Ely, James W. (eds.). The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195379396.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-537939-6.
- ^ Harris, Cheryl I. (2005). "In the Shadow of Plessy". University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. 7 (3): 873–874.
- ^ Bay, Mia (March 23, 2021). Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance. Harvard University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-674-97996-3.
- ^ Doolan, John C. (1914). "Validity of Separate Coach Laws When Applied to Interstate Passengers". Virginia Law Review. 1 (5): 380. doi:10.2307/1063808. ISSN 0042-6601. JSTOR 1063808.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ Gordon, David (1986). "Hall v. Decuir 95 U.S. 485 (1877)". Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
- ^ Beermann, Jack M. (March 2020). "Crisis? Whose Crisis?". William & Mary Law Review. 61: 953.
- ^ Welke, Barbara Young (August 13, 2001). Recasting American Liberty: Gender, Race, Law, and the Railroad Revolution, 1865–1920. Cambridge University Press. p. 338. ISBN 978-0-521-64966-7.
- ^ Singer, Joseph William (1996). "No Right to Exclude: Public Accommodations and Private Property". Northwestern University Law Review. 90 (4): 1396 – via HeinOnline.
- ^ Palmore, Joseph R. (November 1997). "The Not-So-Strange Career of Interstate Jim Crow: Race, Transportation, and the Dormant Commerce Clause, 1878–1946". Virginia Law Review. 83 (8): 1774. doi:10.2307/1073658. JSTOR 1073658.
Further reading
- Beermann, Jack M. (2021). The Journey to Separate but Equal: Madame Decuir's Quest for Racial Justice in the Reconstruction Era. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-3183-4. OCLC 1184123317.
- Scott, Rebecca J. (August 2020). "Discerning a Dignitary Offense: The Concept of Equal 'Public Rights' during Reconstruction". Law and History Review. 38 (3): 519–553. doi:10.1017/S0738248020000255. ISSN 0738-2480.
External links
- Text of Hall v. Decuir, 95 U.S. 485 (1878) is available from: Cornell Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress
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