Question

Brown’s majority opinion states, “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.” Which of the following quotes from Harlan’s dissenting opinion best responds to this argument?

A. “These notable additions to the fundamental law were welcomed by the friends of liberty throughout the world.”

B. “They had, as this court has said, a common purpose, namely, to secure ‘to a race recently emancipated, a race that through many generations have been held in slavery, all the civil rights that the superior race enjoy.’”

C. “We also said: ‘The words of the amendment, it is true, are prohibitory, but they contain a necessary implication of a positive immunity or right, most valuable to the colored race,—the right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as colored; exemption from legal discriminations, implying inferiority in civil society, lessening the security of their enjoyment of the rights which others enjoy; and discriminations which are steps towards reducing them to the condition of a subject race.’”

D. It was, consequently, adjudged that a state law that excluded citizens of the colored race from juries, because of their race, however well qualified in other respects to discharge the duties of jurymen, was repugnant to the fourteenth amendment.

Answer 1

The quote from Harlan’s dissenting opinion that best responds to Brown's majority opinion is:

C. “We also said: ‘The words of the amendment, it is true, are prohibitory, but they contain a necessary implication of a positive immunity or right, most valuable to the colored race,—the right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as colored; exemption from legal discriminations, implying inferiority in civil society, lessening the security of their enjoyment of the rights which others enjoy; and discriminations which are steps towards reducing them to the condition of a subject race.’”