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> But the whole concept of dissent at this level, makes for less respect for the law. Sometimes the majority is wrong. Two important examples are Dred Scott v.

> But the whole concept of dissent at this level, makes for less respect for the law. Sometimes the majority is wrong. Two important examples are Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), in which the court held that black Americans could not be U.S. citizens, and Plessey v. Fergusson (1896), which held that laws requiring segregation of white and non-white races were constitutional. Both of those decisions are now considered wrongly-decided at the time. Justice Taney, who wrote the opinion in Dred Scott, will go down in history as a villain. Justice Harlan, who wrote the dissent in Plessy is a hero.

abduhl 5y ago
Justice Harlan, dissenting in Plessy: “There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the state and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race.” This is the portion of his dissent that usually gets cut out when people quote Plessy. Hardly the civil rights hero you allude to.