The Fuller Court (1888–1910)Racial Discrimination |
Who was the Court’s lone dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson? |
John Marshall Harlan was the only justice to dissent and it is largely this dissent that earned him the name “the Great Dissenter.” Harlan wrote that “our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” He warned his colleagues that their decision would be “as pernicious as the decision” in Dred Scott.