Separate, Equal, or Separate-But-Equal? The Changing Image of Race in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decisions

Abstract

There is no doubt that the United States were not created as a purely democratic state. On the one hand, it established basic rules and principles of democratic government such as free elections, sovereignty of the nation, fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals or independent judiciary. All of these principles were, however, enjoyed only by the part of American society: free elections were guaranteed for white men, excluding women and blacks; sovereignty belonged to the nation, i.e. white women and men, because slaves were not considered citizens; fundamental rights and freedoms were guaranteed only for whites; institutional independence of the judicial branch did not prevent the system from injustice towards the blacks. Furthermore, one of the most important values of democratic society, equal protection of law, was absent in the original constitutional document of 1787, as well as the provisions of Bill of Rights. The clause became part of U.S. constitutional reality yet in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted, as a direct result of social and political changes caused by the civil war. After introducing the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, which abolished slavery, the government took a step forward by making all citizens equal in 1868 and by providing black Americans with suffrage rights in 1870. For former slaves it meant a milestone step in their fight to destroy the social and political boundaries which limited their basic rights and freedoms. However, before the above mentioned events took place, the period of injustice and exploitation occurred with the U.S. Supreme Court in the middle of social and political tensions. The main purpose of the article is to show the changing attitude of the U.S. Supreme Court with regard to the social and political status of African‑Americans. This attitude influenced historical and contemporary social relations among the American society proving one of the most controversial aspects of U.S. democracy.