Justice Harlan wanted to speak out his dissenting opinion by showing that this was wrong for black people to deal with. Harlan thought that it was wrong for the law to take away the rights of the African Americans and that shouldn’t stand in their way. He was using the 14th amendment as evidence to show that the rules don’t fall in line with the amendment at one bit. It said in the amendment that no discrimination shall be made against them by law because of their color.
He didn’t want to keep it to himself during that time, since he wanted to say his own opinion and not agree with the majority opinion of the other justices. He did make a good argument by having evidence to back up his claim and speaking facts on the topic. While the people in 1896 didn’t like that the Justice went against the majority opinion. They probably would have wanted him to be not justice anymore for them in that way.
While in the time we live in now, I think people would have reacted differently saying that Justice Harlan is speaking up for the African Americans in a good way. He believed that the Jim Crow laws were wrong and holding back black people while white people get more freedom. It did lead to some changes after the trial’s verdict which helped black people to gain freedom. Though there are still problems today in this country in discrimination that have gone in the past couple of months.
No comments:
Post a Comment