Plessy v. Ferguson · ¶9

So, too, in the Civil Rights cases, 109 U. S. 3, 24, it was said that the act of a mere individual, the owner of an inn, a public conveyance or place of amusement, refusing accommodations to colored people, cannot be justly regarded as imposing any badge of slavery or servitude upon the applicant, but only as involving an ordinary civil injury, properly cognizable by the laws of the State, and presumably subject to redress by those laws until the contrary appears. “It would be running the slavery argument into the ground,” said Mr. Justice Bradley, “to make it apply to every act of discrimination which a person may see. fit to make as to the guests he will entertain, or as to the people he will take into his coach or cab or car, or admit to his concert or theatre, or deal within other matters of intercourse or business.”

U. S. Reports, bound volume
U. S. Reports, volume 163, at 537 (Library of Congress) · transcription: Caselaw Access Project
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