Defending Plessy (Plessy v Ferguson Trial)

Homer Plessy bought a first-class ticket in 1892 for a trip that he was going to go on in Lousiana. Homer settled into the coach section for whites. The conductor told Homer Plessy to move to a different coach because the conductor thought Plessy was not white. He refused and the conductor threw him off the train and put him into a jail cell.  

Is it ethically and morally right to put Homer Plessy in jail for just simply sitting in one of the coaches with white passengers on a train? I don’t think so! Plessy bought a ticket for a first-class coach seat on a train in good faith. That means the seller’s action on behalf of the train sold a ticket that should have been honored by the train. He was kicked out of the train simply because of the conductor’s poor ethics and morals. Keeping black people away from white people is a violation of our civil rights. Our Constitution is ethically color blind. A state could not constitutionally debrief citizens of their rights based on their races.  Plessy should be treated as equal as a white passager on a coach’s train. 

The conductor apparently used physical force to throw Plessy off the train. While Plessy didn't use any physical force on the conductor, therefore, the conductor should be charged with assault. Furthermore, the conductor disrupted the train which resulted in the peace and tranquility of other passengers’ trips. Pleesy didn’t deserve to be in jail because any crime that he had committed on the train didn't have victims. No one was ropped, hurt, etc.

When Plessy stepped into the car and the conductor kicked him out, (Separate Car Act) his rights were violated within the 13th Amendment which was the banning on slavery as well as the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment. The trains that were racially segregated that were deemed as separate, but equal cars were a complete farce. It makes no ethical sense for a person to get a nicer more sophisticated seat based on race which meant that the “Jim Crow” coach full of dark-skinned individuals were being treated like slaves. The Lousiana law is unconstitutional. 

(Homer Plessy looks like a white passenger) 

There was no definition of Caucasian so a reasonable ethical person would say 7/8 Caucasian which Homar was is close enough to a white individual. 1/8 means one of eight great grandparents were black and seven out of eight great grandparents were Caucasian.  It makes no ethical sense to put Plessy in jail when he did not commit any crime of violence to the passengers on board. There was no victim in this crime therefore Homer Plessy did not deserve criminal punishment because no one was impacted, hurt, or taken advantage of. That is unethical. Plessy has his own 1st Amendment rights which should trump other rights that produce segregation because they are unethical in our society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj54KP16Ilw 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDa3ft9VcYc 

https://www.britannica.com/event/Plessy-v-Ferguson-1896 

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/163/537

Reconstruction Video Reflection

When the Reconstruction Period first came everyone truly desired the sense of freedom, but that was far from what came out to be. The Northern reconstruction plan never really failed, but it was never really given the chance to succeed. The North won the big war, however, they were not prepared for the backlash from the South. Due to the fact that the white southerners were used to slavery, some did not want to abide by the law. (white supremacists). Many African Americans were lynched because of this which I think is absolutely terrible.

It is crazy in today’s how even just a rope hanging on the ceiling of a garage of an African American Nascar driver can be thought of like a noose representing a hate crime with no evidence at first. It is crazy how that can still strike a nerve in African Americans today even if they do not know the backstory or if it’s real. Racism today is nothing like it was back then.

I affirmatively believe it has gotten truly better, however, I always try to stay out of any racism topic of discussion because I have had no issue with that myself or from my ancestors. To me, since my ancestors and myself have not experienced it, it just brings up negativity and most of the time fakeness amongst people that think they have experienced the exact same thing as an individual that goes viral. God made humans equally and wonderfully made. It does make sense how individuals especially darker skin Americans feel about how their ancestors had been treated and sympathy for change and equality. However, it should not trump a person’s life in a negative way. Life is not supposed to be lived in the past moments. An individual should strive for what the future holds.

https://video.alexanderstreet.com/watch/episode-1-9 

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/reconstruction 

https://www.ushistory.org/us/35.asp 

Mock Trial Reflection

There were some interesting ideas that I learned from both groups presenting the State vs Mann mock trial. Slave rental was normal in North Carolina which is crazy to comprehend if that really happened in today’s society. It is basically saying that the slaves were “objects” to rent, not normal human beings. The relationship between the slave owner and slave was filled with fear on both sides. It was due to the fact that the owner was scared that the slave might run away and the slave feared that he/she might be treated super poorly.

Here are some of the bullet points that I thought were impactful points from both groups…

• Protestant Christian community (doctrine of the apostles) accept it as moral to have slaves because the work of the slave owner improves the slaves well being.

• The Bible talks about slaves in a good way. Abraham had slaves; Jesus never spoke out about slavery. 

• Western traditions are based on Greco-Roman traditions (slavery was never really mentioned.) 

• A slave is a piece of property just like a sack of flour whether we like it or not within the law.

Within both groups presenting it was clear to me that the group that one me over was the team of Mann. The group had much stronger points. Lydia getting shot in the back was her fault because she didn’t obey the rules as I believe the right ruling in 1829. However, it would be completely different in our society today. Our society today is very soft and any act of violence especially killing someone demands a jail sentence unless they are acting out of self-defense which can be hard to defend unless there’s concrete evidence.

VSVS

Battle of Fort Sumter Pro-Slavery EOTO Debate

Fort Sumter was an island fortress located in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. The attack on Fort Sumter took place in April 1861 and marked the official beginning of the American Civil War. The Civil War lasted 4 years. It cost the lives of around 620,000 Americans and freed 3.9 million enslaved people from bondage. 

Beauregard’s nineteen coastal batteries unleashed a heavy barrage on Fort Sumter, eventually firing an astonishing 3,000 shots at the fortress in thirty-four hours. By Saturday, Apr 13, artillery fire had broken through the fortress’s five-foot-thick brick walls, inflicting fires within the post. Along with his stores of ammunition depleted, Anderson and his Union forces had to surrender the fort shortly after 2:00 in the afternoon. No Union troops had been killed throughout the bombardment, however, two men died the subsequent day in an explosion that occurred during an artillery salute control before the U.S. evacuation. The bombardment of Fort Sumter would play a serious half in triggering the war. Within the days following the assault, Lincoln issued a demand with Union volunteers to crush the rebellion, whereas the stacking of Southern states together with Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee solidified their lot with the Confederacy.

After Lincoln’s election and the secession of the southern states, small numbers of enslaved people began showing up at Union forts in the hopes of taking refuge. But Union commanders were not charged with protecting slaves and promptly returned them to their masters. One such slave, a teenager, made his way across Charleston Harbor to Fort Sumter in March of 1861 to appeal to Major Anderson but was turned over to marshalls in Charleston.   

With Union troops in their midst, white residents of Charleston were increasingly concerned about runaway slaves. Of even greater worry, however, was the possibility of a slave uprising. Mary Chestnut, the wife of prominent Charleston politician and Confederate colonel James Chestnut, started keeping a diary in February 1861. As events unfolded across Charleston Harbor on April 12, she wondered how the action at Fort Sumter would impact the future.

With the start of the Civil War, desperate refugees from slavery began to flood Union camps, but the government in Washington still had no consistent policy regarding fugitives. Often their fate was in the hands of the individual commanders.  Finally, on August 6, 1861, the North declared fugitive slaves to be "contraband of war" if their labor had been used to aid the Confederacy. Contrabands were considered free and were protected by the Union army.

As the reality of war sunk in, slaveholders in the South hoped that their slaves would remain loyal to them. Some did, and the slave uprising that numerous people feared never came. But the exodus of enslaved people who crossed Union lines and made their way to freedom steadily increased after guns were fired at Fort Sumter. By 1863, approximately 10,000 former slaves flooded Washington. By the end of the Civil War, as many as 40,000 fugitives had made their way to the Union capital. 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fort-sumter-the-civil-war-begins-1018791/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43597823 

https://fortsumtertours.com/about-ft-sumter/ 

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/fort-sumter