Race, Place, and the Law, 1836-1948

Abstract

Racial segregation consisted of a complex system of public policies and private practices that governed the relationships of whites and African Americans. The system was legitimized in 1896 by the Supreme Court's conclusion in Plessy v. Ferguson that the enforced separation of the races was permissible as long as the accommodations available to blacks were equal to those reserved for whites. In reality, the doctrine of “separate but equal” was a cruel legal fiction. African Americans were always separate, but they were never equal. Race, Place, and the Law explores the spatial and geopolitical dimensions of race relations from the antebellum era through the late 1940s. During the era of slavery, questions concerning jurisdiction and territoriality arose when enslaved persons were transported from slave states to localities where the institution was outlawed. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 gave owners the right to recover enslaved persons who escaped to free states. More complicated questions arose when persons held in bondage accompanied their owners to jurisdictions where forced servitude was not allowed. The legal question in such cases was whether the enslaved person's temporary presence in a free state divested the owner of property rights. In Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), the Supreme Court held that a temporary domicile did not affect the rights of owners, inasmuch as blacks held in slavery had no rights that whites were bound to respect.