Henry Billings Brown

“The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races.”

“We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority.”

“If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.”

“Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences.”

“If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.”

“If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other's merits and a voluntary consent of individuals.”

“A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races...has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races.”

“The police power cannot be put forward as an excuse for oppressive and unjust legislation.”

“The decision involves nothing less than a surrender of the taxing power to the moneyed class.”