What famous supreme court case in 1869 declared that segregation was legal?

Answer 1

Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education,175 US 528 (1899)

Cumming was a landmark class action suit that appeared to sanction segregation in public schools; however, this is not quite an accurate interpretation of the decision.

Several African-American citizens of Richmond County, Georgia, brought suite against the county school board and the local taxing authority demanding injunctive relief preventing collection of a portion of the taxes levied against them as property owners. The Petitioners objected to paying the part of the tax used to support two "whites-only" high schools after Richmond County closed its private African-American high school. The African-American students were transferred to high schools in the August city school district, which offered comparable facilities.

In the Court's opinion, the tax did not discriminate against African-Americans any more than it did the white people in the county, due to a portion of the tax money going to a girls' private school. Justice Harlan asserted, "A taxpayer who has boys and no girls of a school age has as much right to complain of the unequal distribution of the taxes to a girls' high school as have these plaintiffs. The action of the board appears to us to be more a discrimination as to sex than it does as to race. While the board appropriates some money to assist a denominational school for white boys and girls, it has never established a high school for white boys, and, if the contention of these plaintiffs is correct, white parents who have boys old enough to attend a high school have as much right to complain as these plaintiffs..."

With regard to segregation, the Court stated the Plaintiffs had not raised the question of the "separate but equal" doctrine and, therefore, the Court could not rule on that issue.

Finally, the Court concluded that public taxation for the purpose of supporting the schools was a state's rights issue that fell outside federal jurisdiction, except in cases of "clear and unmistakable disregard of rights secured by the supreme law of the land." The Court lacked jurisdiction over the tax issue, and affirmed the judgment of the State.

While the US Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of the "separate but equal" doctrine established under Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896), the practice of segregation was supported by implication. Brown v. Board of Education, (1954) overturned de jure segregation, which was touched upon in Cumming v. Richmond, in that the private schools discussed in Richmond would eventually be required to integrate, rendering the tax apportionment moot.

For more information, see Related Questions, below.

Answer 2

The famous Supreme Court case in 1869 that declared segregation was legal was actually the Slaughterhouse Cases, not a case specifically about segregation. The Slaughterhouse Cases dealt with the question of whether a state could grant a monopoly to a single private company, and the Supreme Court held that it did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The case did not directly address segregation or civil rights.