Is The Construction Of The White Citizen, As Defined By Williams (2005), Explicitly Evident In Supreme Ct Case Opinions Of The 19th & 20th Centuries

In her 2005 essay, Linda Faye Williams details how slavery was the fundamental explanation as to understanding identity in the United States, and that it signalled the conjoining of (male) whiteness to citizenship, whilst casting to one side quintessential non-citizens such as white women, Indians and the enslaved[1]. In the pages that follow, I intend to examine opinions of Supreme Court cases where such an ideology of white superiority may appear. Furthermore, I intend to analyse to what extent (if any) this may be related back to slavery.

Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)
The Warren Court is best known for being the most liberal Supreme Court that has ever over-looked the United States, and a close examination of this (and the general politics of the era) is first necessary to put into some sort of context the ruling made in the case Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954, and remember that Earl Warren was appointed to the bench by President Eisenhower a year previous to the deciding of Brown. He was expected to be a consolidator and take a conservative approach to all matters. As events unfolded, however, the Warren Court became the most notoriously liberal Supreme Court that the United States has ever had. Coupled with the administrations of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson, the Warren Court was to play a major role in what was to be a turbulent time of great change in US history, intertwining with great civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and Bob Dylan, as well as the actions of Mohammed Ali, Tommy Smith and John Carlos. In the lifespan of the United States Supreme Court, the case of Brown is something of a watershed moment. Along with Roe vs. Wade (1973) and Marbury vs. Madison (1803), Brown is one of the three most important Supreme Court case rulings of all time. Simply from the high regard in which it is now held, it is unimaginable that such a revolutionary opinion would be underpinned by Williams’ ideas of the white citizen.

Brown was a major catalyst of the civil rights era, being decided as it was in 1954. Whilst the ruling was revolutionary, the opinion was far from it. Considerably shorter than those written for the Warren Court’s other foremost liberal decisions, it stretches in all it’s glory to just eleven pages (Miranda vs. Arizona (1966) is closer to seventy), but quality comes without quantity in Brown. Balkin notes how writing for the future in court case opinions poses numerous problems for the presiding judge, and usually results in one of two equal and opposite tendencies: the first being to state with undoubtable clarity the basic principles they don’t want undermined or overlooked over time; the second being an attempt to decide as little as possible[2]. “In short,” wrote Wilkinson, “the opinion failed to rouse or inspire; it simply existed[3].”

Chief Justice Warren erred on the side of discretion when penning the unmotivating final statements, content to carefully take one memorable step and leave all problems for the future, thus fulfilling the second of Balkin’s two tendencies reasoned above. The simplicity of the document makes a statement in itself: that perhaps now the nation could start anew, drawing a thick line under racially motivated problems. This line could, therefore, signify a hope as towards a change in the attitude of whites as well as Negroes. Whatever privileges that were held in accordance with the ‘white citizen’ should not be relinquished, but should be shared among those of a darker skin as well. Desegregating the schools of the South would, they hoped, signal the beginning of the end as far as the curse of slavery was concerned. Of education, Warren writes in the seventh paragraph:-

“Today it is a principle instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment[4].”

This tells us that Warren wanted to bring an end to the subliminal existence of any notion of the ‘white citizen’ which was left over from slavery. The idea of white superiority should have died out with the nineteenth century, but instead lingered on for another fifty years, and can even now be traced in existence.

The overruling of Plessy cannot have been an easy decision to make. Any Chief Justice who overturns a previous Supreme Court ruling leaves him/herself open to criticism for their judicial activism. Though it may seem like a logical and correct decision to many in the twenty-first century, there are still some who contest it’s worth. Bell, for example, argues it would do nothing to prevent sustained white resistance to full social equality for blacks, and that it is nothing more than a symbolic act. To leave it on the statute book would, according to him, be more beneficial if a series of orders were sent out requiring strict equalisation of facilities, as to lie bare the “simplistic hypocrisy” of Plessy[5]. Bell’s fear is of antagonising those who embrace the ‘white citizen’ and enjoy it’s racist benefits whilst caring very little for anyone else; his more conservative and measured method of change still hold the belief that separate is inherently unequal, and because of this, his popularity among the civil rights leader of the time would have been very non-existent. Today, it is taken for granted that Plessy was overruled:-

“Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected. We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal[6].”

The general acceptance of the meaning of this is that Plessy was, at least, now irrelevant. It was meaningless. The symbolism of this move alone is underrated by Bell: he dismisses it as having no value whatsoever. The symbolic devaluation of Plessy by the Earl Warren indicates a change in the feelings of white Americans, with the possible exception of those in the South, where slavery was, then, still a dream, rather than a nightmare that was left in the past. Furthermore, Chief Justice Warren also argues that equalisation has already happened, and so any process like the one set out by Bell would just slow down what was inevitable. “The Negro and white schools involved have been equali[s]ed or are being equali[s]ed, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers[7],” wrote Warren.

In the opinion, he then spends a lot of ink debating ‘tangible’ qualities, before deciding a mere comparison of such attributes will not suffice. He turns his attention to the effect of segregation itself on public education. Warren’s decision to rely on qualities which cannot be objectively measured but make for greatness is a bold attempt in itself to break down the colour line. The crucial statement Warren makes is:-

“To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their heart and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone[8].”

We get the impression from this that the dividing itself is not done fairly. The white children are not being pushed away half a metre by the left hand and the black children are not being pushed away half a metre by the right hand; the black children are being pushed away a whole metre with both hands! Here, he describes the elevation of the whites and their self-esteem as having been derived from the pushing away of the Negro race and their children, as if they were some way inferior to the white race.

To conclude, the task Warren appears to have set himself (possibly subliminally) in writing this opinion is to equalise the two races in a way that is immeasurable. This is in itself inherently reversing the notion of the ‘white citizen’ and retracts the idea that “to be a citizen [i]s also to be white.[9]” What he writes in the Brown vs. Board Of Education opinion is effectively a statement which says it is possible to be a citizen and black in the United States. There is acknowledgement of apparent white supremacy within the states of the South, which can only imply that the general social standing of the African-American in the early 1950’s in said states had not improved much since Emancipation. There is evidence that white people still resented those of the Negro race (many parents moved their children to private schools in the years that followed Brown), and this only resembles a shift in the colour line as opposed to an abolishment of it. However, this is, of course, not reflected in the opinion of the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case, and what illusions there are to the white citizen, they are made in a criticising manner, and are spoken of with disdain and dislike. They are spoken of as if they are the problem at the heart of the matter.

Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) And The Works Of W.E.B. Du Bois
As mentioned in previous paragraphs, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) effectively overruled Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896), which dealt with a similar matter. The opinion of the latter gives us an insight into the American political view of race and the slavery aftermath and, when analysed in alignment W.E.B. Du Bois’ “The Souls of Black Folk”, gives us two contrasting views of the mood at the time.

It is first important to point out that Plessy vs. Ferguson was decided just thirty-one years after the end of the civil war and the ratification of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. It should not surprise us, therefore, that the plaintiffs tried to prove the act in question unconstitutional and conflicting with the Thirteenth Amendment as well as the Fourteenth. In just the third paragraph, Mr. Justice Brown dismissed any possible conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment and stated it was “too clear for argument.[10]” It is a safe guess to say, I think, that Du Bois would have disagreed, for he wrote:- “For this much all men know: despite compromise, war, and struggle, the Negro is not free.[11]” These are two greatly contrasting opinions. While the Negro may no longer be in chains, being whipped by his Master, he is neither free to sit wherever he likes on a train. He must be sectioned off from the white people, in a place deemed equal to that of the white people. Too clear for argument it no longer appears, and had Justice Brown ruled the act of Louisiana’s general assembly to be in conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, then equalisation may have occurred half a decade earlier than Chief Justice Brown ordered it. Justice Brown’s plain and flat refusal of the act conflicting with the Thirteenth Amendment can also be seen as embodying the notion of the ‘white citizen’. He dismisses it apparently without due care and consideration. He finds it unthinkable that something so washed in the blood of dead slaves still exists in his society today.

The constitutionality of the separation of the Negroes from the white race has a direct link to slavery, and the period just before Emancipation swept through the South. Du Bois writes:-

“The very name of the [Freedmen’s] Bureau stood for a thing in the South which for two centuries and better men had refused even to argue, -- that life amid free Negroes was simply unthinkable, the maddest of experiments.[12]”

He tells us that such a Governmental institution as the Freedman’s Bureau was resented with great disdain throughout the states of the South, and the separation of the two races was, in some way, a denial of the fact that Negroes were no longer bound for eternity in servitude. Through this simple ruling that separate but equal could carry on, Justice Brown was letting the white citizens of the South continually believe that the Negro was no longer a tool of a Master. This refusal to let the coloured people mix with the white people makes the entire opinion of the case Plessy vs. Ferguson one of that set to benefit the ‘white citizen’.

Specific examples of the notion of the ‘white citizen’ can be found in the opinion. Indeed, at the opening of paragraph twelve, Justice Brown concedes that “the white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country.” The true meaning of such a statement is two-fold: firstly, it recognises that the Negro is sociologically below the status of the white man; and secondly it emphasises to us that the average white citizen on the street probably has little respect for the Negro and his rights. After all, why should he? The Dred Scott decision (dealt with in more detail later on) of 1857 said that no negro was afforded any rights that the white man had to recognise and acknowledge. Nevertheless, in “Souls of Black Folk,” W.E.B. Du Bois argues Negro degradation is the result of colour prejudice, and not the other way round. He contends that colour prejudice is the foundation for the status and condition of the Negro; what this means in relation to the above quote from the 1896 opinion is that the white race has become the dominant race through colour prejudice -- a fact overlooked by Justice Brown. The plaintiffs argument as referred to in paragraph seven, of the “enforced separation of the two races stamp[ing] the coloured race with a badge of inferiority.[13]”, is an interesting one, so far as it is a principle argument which is upheld in the Brown vs. Board of Education opinion of 1954. Moreover, this is again intertwined with the above paragraph: the white race saw itself as the dominant race, we are told, and so it was always going to be that the Negro race would become the second-rate race, and hence the notion of the ‘white citizen’ would be maintained as the status quo.

To refer back to paragraph twelve of the Plessy opinion, Justice Brown details how, in the eyes of the Constitution and of the law, there is no one ruling body, made up of one particular class or one particular race[14]. This comes directly after he informs us of the white class seeing itself as the dominant race. Consequently, the dominant interpretation of this is that technically, in the eyes of the law, there is no domination whatsoever, but in reality, there is sociological domination. It appears he is willing to let the ‘white citizen’ practice domination while pretending it really does not exist in any form by saying it is not in existence in the United States Constitution:-

“The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his colour when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.[15]”

The ‘white citizen’ is no longer present in the eyes of the American Supreme Court, but it still exists -- it has shifted personas from the Dred Scott vs. Sandford opinion of 1857, where it was set in concrete in American law[16], as will be outlined later on.

The doctrine of separate but equal is ultimately an attempt to mask the supposed superiority of the white citizen; it is a vain attempt to make the black people feel accepted; it draws them closer with one hand and pushes them away with the other. This attempt to somehow satisfy the Negro race is an admittance of guilt, as if they were aware this social construction was immoral and unethical from the beginning.

In the final analysis, we see the ‘white citizen’ notion shifting from one guise to another. The official status it bore of 1857 is no longer recognised and it is not acceptable in a court of law. Nonetheless, it still exists, in something of an unofficial capacity. Judge Brown appears reluctant, uneasy unwilling to look into ways of breaking it down, and perhaps unaware of how to go about such a thing. His hesitancy was only helping the notion of the ‘white citizen’ survive well into the twentieth century. Overall, the written opinion is touched by a stench of “the court’s chronic refusal to dismantle the structure of white supremacy.[17]”

Guinn vs. United States (1915)
Decided some nineteen years after the Plessy vs. Ferguson case, this case is the least notable of all four concerned in this essay; this is reflected in the amount of material so far written on it by scholars of any worth. It is, however, notable for being the first lawsuit to be taken up by the NAACP.

It has been established previous that the ‘white citizen’ theory is prominent in the opinion of Plessy, albeit in an unofficial capacity which Justice Brown plays down. The question, then, is whether or not the notion of the ‘white citizen’ is still in existence in Supreme Court case opinions in the first part of the twentieth century. Certainly the opinion for this case is the longest of all four concerned in this essay, but this is most likely due to the complexities of the US Constitution and the relationship of it to the constitution of the state involved.

The similarities of Guinn vs. United States to the other three cases are marked, especially Brown vs. Board of Education, 1954. While Brown abolished segregation in public schools throughout the South, Guinn overturned a state constitutional provision limiting the right of suffrage to whites. It was automatically nullified by ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment[18] some forty-five years previous. The ruling in this case would lead us to believe that quite a lot had changed since Plessy, since the ruling grossly favoured the African-American plaintiffs. Nevertheless, there are brief occasions where the ironically-named Chief Justice White appears hesitant towards possible judicial activism and errs on the side of restraint. He writes that the court has “. . . no right to question the motive of the state in establishing a standard. . .[19]” Here, it would be naive to suggest Chief Justice White was manipulating the checks and balances in American politics; nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine the Warren Court restraining itself from going further by penning such a sentence.

Although no direct reference is made to the suffering of the Negro in the opinion, and the supposed dominance of the white race which comes with it, Chief Justice White does allude to, and show awareness of, the critical sociological problem at the heart of the court case:-

“. . . [the] standard is a mere denial of the restrictions imposed by the prohibitions of the 15th Amendment, and by necessary result re-creates and perpetuates the very conditions which the Amendment was intended to destroy.[20]”

In the above quote the Chief Justice seems eager to uphold what the fifteenth Amendment stands for, and appears to be unwilling to let any state in the South by-pass it or find a way around it with temporary measures -- measures which have the ‘white citizen’ theory at the centre of them. He sees the possibility for a reversal regarding the destroying of prejudicial behaviour, and gives the impression of being unwilling to let such a thing happen. An insight is also given by the opinion of Chief Justice White into what one may term the ‘rehumanisation’ of the black man. Roughly half way through, he tells how “the word 'white' disappeared and therefore all male citizens . . . came under the generic grant of suffrage made by the state.[21]” This is clear irrefutable evidence that the states of the South (including the state in question, Oklahoma) were making strides to include persons of the Negro race in citizenship; they were trying to make their legislation at least fair, even if the hearts of many white people were still prejudiced with racism. The ruling in this court case would further help equalise the statute book by dealing a blow to the temporary, blatantly racist legislation.

In conclusion, it is perhaps fitting that the case Guinn vs. United States of 1915 is often only cited as a minor victory in the struggle for civil rights and the battle to fully escape the shackles of slavery. The victory was what it was: Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka some thirty-nine years later proved to be a catalyst for a revolutionary period in American history and a further step away from the shadow of slavery; Guinn vs. United States was a victory for the coloured man in Oklahoma (and, to a lesser extent, Maryland as well) and that was it. As far as the ‘white citizen’ theory is concerned, the case marks a period of transition. While Justice Brown was happy to acknowledge the supposed dominance of the white race over the Negro race (and take no steps to try and stamp it out), the opinion of Chief Justice White is a bridge between that and the judicial activism of Chief Justice Warren. Chief Justice White does not recognise the ‘white citizen’ as being of a higher stature in any form, and yet he does not try and alter too much in his opinion of Guinn vs. United States. If we reconsider Balkin’s opposite and equal tendencies for writing for the future, it is a fair assumption to conclude Chief Justice White was writing with exceptional caution, in what was an attempt to decide as little as possible and leave as much as he could to future judges and opinions they may write. It is more than likely Chief Justice White was all to aware of the racism suffered by coloured people as slavery still stalked the United Sates, yet he made no explicit stand against it.

Speculation still swirls as to what Chief Justice Edward Douglass White really believed as far as segregation is concerned. There is little evidence to substantiate such an extreme claim, but many believe White was a founding member of the Ku Klux Klan in Louisiana. The only piece of ‘evidence’ is of him speaking to Thomas Dixon in 1910 “I was a member of the Klan,[22]” but there has been no recognisable academic verification of such a statement ever being made. The lack of condemnation in the final opinion of Guinn vs. United States would surely authenticate such a claim, but that would be nullified by the overall ruling in the case.

Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857)
In recent years, Dred Scott has taken on the appearance of the ultimate ‘bad decision’[23], as well as coming to symbolise the high point of racism in American law. Never before, or since, has a case been so decisive as to compel every single Supreme Court judge to write an opinion. The opinion of the court would prove divisive politically, and was a major aid in helping Lincoln seize power in the election of 1860, and it drew a war between the northern states and the southern states considerably closer.

Nevertheless, to contextualise Dred Scott is to look at it back then, as it happened. The civil war was still five years away when the case was decided and Emancipation for Negroes held in servitude was still a distant dream of the future that seemed doubtful whether to appear at all. Five years previous, Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ had been first published to great joy in the North, and some were still heading west to California in search of gold. The United States was still growing as a nation. The works of W.E.B. Du Bois were still fifty years in the future and Booker T. Washington was just one year old. The United States still had a lot to learn.

It is the only case focused on in this essay decided prior to the civil war and Emancipation. It is because of this, therefore, that we may expect to find the notion of the ‘white citizen’ in great detail. Indeed, the Dred Scott decision is cited by Williams as “further conjoining citizenship to whiteness”[24]. The question as regards this Supreme Court case opinion has, to some extent, then, been pre-answered by Williams, and there is clear, direct evidence in the opinion of the Dred Scott case to back up her claim.

Back in 1857, to be a slave was to be Negro and (in the South) the term ‘Negro’ meant slave, except when explicitly modified by the word ‘free’[25]. When we consider this as intertwined with the statement made early on in the opinion of the court, that the class of persons described in the plea were thought not to be members of the political body, it becomes blatantly obvious that Williams was only too correct in referring to Dred Scott as disenfranchising the African-American in a demeaning (and racist) manner.

Equally shocking (if not more so) is what follows in paragraph two of Chief Justice Taney’s opinion:-

“. . . they were . . . considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges. . .[26]”

The above quote demonstrates two key factors in relation to racial prejudice of the time. Firstly, it shockingly assumes white superiority, as if it had always been that way and was always going to be that way. It fails to take into account any emotional value the Negro may have and instead siphons him off as simply “inferior”. The first part of the quote also gave the ‘white citizen’ a legal framework with which to weave racism around. Inbuilt to the assumption that white people were superior and ‘better’ than those with coloured skin was the knowledge that this brought with it special privileges while the Negro was devoid of any human rights. The reaffirming of white dominance from the highest court of the land fundamentally placed the judiciary on the side of the states of the South as the battle of wills between the North and the South began to gain a genuine momentum in Congress.

Interestingly, the third paragraph almost serves the purpose of a disclaimer. Chief Justice Taney argues it is not up to the court to decide how ‘right’ this is, but they are there solely to interpret the constitution and pass judgement in a way they see fit. Taney is passing off the content of the previous paragraph as simply judicial restraint.

This is also proven to be a disclaimer for what is to follow, as Chief Justice Taney declares that “no state can . . . introduce a new member into the political community created by the Constitution of the United States.[27]” From this, he consequents that the Negro was “intended to be excluded from it.” This is deeply shocking because he says it was never the intention of the United States Constitution to make persons of the Negro race fully-fledged citizens of the country. The statement once more aligns citizenship with whiteness, and makes the United States appear as a place for white men and white men only to live in freedom.

Approximately half way through his opinion of the court, Chief Justice Taney cites the Constitution as only making reference to coloured people as property. This is devaluing the Negro further by reducing him to something that can be bought, sold, and done away with. He is not recognised as having any feelings, emotions, or any other worth other than what work he can do before sundown (the female slaves worth is linked specifically to the child-bearing ability).

Nearing the end of the opinion, Chief Justice Taney notes how “it seems . . . to be supposed that there is a difference between property in a slave and other property.[28]” This signifies that the white people were aware that a slave as a piece of property, though property in the eyes of the law, was actually something different to that. And although the same laws apply to the slave as to other items of property, that, perhaps, should not be the case.

It has been stated beforehand that Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka of 1954 was a catalyst for a period of turbulent revolution in American history, while the deciding of Guinn (1915) and Plessy (1896) had less of an impact upon the nation. It is of my opinion that the decision reached in the Dred Scott vs. Sandford case of 1857 had a greater impact than all three of the prior-named cases put together. And the underlying reason: the racial discrimination contained in the opinion and the theory that has come to be known as the ‘white citizen’.

The Impact Of Dred Scott
To let Dred Scott vs. Sandford take it’s place on a chronological timeline is to see the waves it made in US history.. Throughout the North, in the months that followed Chief Justice Taney’s decision, there was widespread anger among both the white people and the free Negroes. This is best exemplified by a New Orleans newspaper which, on March 21, 1857, stated that “the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case is the theme of bitter comment in the anti-slavery . . . North.[29]”

Some Northern went further in blaming the Supreme Court as an institution:-

“The dangers apprehended from the organic tendencies of the Supreme Court to engross the legislative power of the Federal Government, which Jefferson foresaw and so often warned his countrymen against, are no longer imaginary.[30]”

A further impact of the Dred Scott ruling is touched upon here. The power held by the Supreme Court of the United States was immediately called into question. Taney’s decision (in part due to him addressing issues beyond the scope of Scott’s immediate claim) led to a temporary diminution of the power of the Supreme Court[31]. Because the bench had so vigorously preached that the ‘white citizen’ was king of the sociological spectrum, they came under immense pressure from those who could see this was not necessarily the case.

The opinion of the Dred Scott case then sparked a chain of events which would all, in some way or another, be in opposition to the ‘white citizen theory. The choosing of Abraham Lincoln as Republican Party candidate for the election of 1860 came first. Coming from nowhere to be candidate, Lincoln went on to assume the Presidency later that year and was a voice for those trapped in the involuntary servitude that was slavery.

It would be a gross exaggeration to say Dred Scott started the civil war the following year, but the decision in the case certainly ended any hope of a peaceful agreement being reached between the North and the South. Dred Scott was, at the very least, a catalyst for the war. From the war came the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves and giving birth to the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution. To concede the Negro's right to freedom, however, is not to concede his right to U.S. citizenship[32]. The ‘white citizen’, it appears, was not killed off in the civil war, as the Plessy opinion, some thirty-one years later, would testify. As well as the Thirteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were also born out of the war which was started, in part, by the racism of the Dred Scott vs. Sandford decision of 1857.

In the final analysis, it is worth stating that this case stands out among all four for its lack of humanity and its inner belief that white people are inherently superior. The selfishness of the assertion, shown in the opinion, that the Declaration of Independence was formed by white people and for white people, is startling. Moreover, it has the most direct link back to slavery; it is a legalised product of the slave-holding South; It is a testament to what they believed; and it was a founding factor in the ideological notion of the white citizen. That is not to say, however, that the other three cases are of no importance in relation to slavery.

“The colour line,” wrote Williams, “fabricated citizenship itself.[33]” This is what Plessy did. Through the enforcing of separate railway carriages, equal or not, and the permitting of such enforcement, the case of 1896 strengthened the divide between the two races, thus making the fabrication of citizenship even stronger. Williams ends the crucial section of her essay with an explanation amounting to the civil war and all the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States not being able to provide coloured people with equality in the public sphere. Today, ‘separate’ is taken to mean inherently unequal. It seems equality has been brought a step closer through affirmative action policies of the second half of the twentieth century, but there are immeasurable qualities in society that cannot be judged with any absolute accuracy (inbuilt hatred expressed away form the public gaze, for example); how great these are will determine the extent to which the notion of the ‘white citizen’ still exists. One thing is for sure: it is still there, left over from slavery, having evolved from one form to another through time. It came from slavery, and though it is unlikely to lead back to slavery, it still has a detrimental and harmful effect on the society public sphere.


Endnotes
[1] Williams, Linda Faye. “The Constraint Of Race: Slavery, The Legacy Of The ‘White Citizen’ And American Social Policy”. p3-9
[2] Balkin, Jack M. What Brown v. Board Of Education Should Have Said. New York: New York University Press, 2001. p45
[3] Wilkinson, “From Brown To Bakke”p29
[4] Chief Justice Warren. Brown vs. Board Of Education Of Topeka Opinion
[5] Balkin, Jack M. What Brown v. Board Of Education Should Have Said. New York: New York University Press, 2001. p46
[6] Chief Justice Warren. Brown vs. Board Of Education Of Topeka Opinion
[7] Chief Justice Warren. Brown vs. Board Of Education Of Topeka Opinion
[8] Chief Justice Warren. Brown vs. Board Of Education Of Topeka Opinion
[9] Williams, Linda Faye. “The Constraint Of Race: Slavery, The Legacy Of The ‘White Citizen’ And American Social Policy”. http://www.yale.edu/glc/justice/williams.pdf Accessed 13 / 03 / 2006. p3
[10] Chief Justice Brown. Plessy vs. Ferguson Opinion
[11] Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls Of Black Folk. New York: Dover, 1994. p24
[12] Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls Of Black Folk. New York: Dover, 1994. p17-8
[13] Chief Justice Brown. Plessy vs. Ferguson Opinion
[14] Chief Justice Brown. Plessy vs. Ferguson Opinion
[15] Chief Justice Brown. Plessy vs. Ferguson Opinion
[16] Finkelman, Paul. Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History With Documents. New York: Bedford Books, 1997!. p4
[17] Harris, 1993. As quoted by Golub, Mark. “Plessy As Passing: Judicial Repsonses To Ambiguously Raced Bodies In Plessy v. Ferguson”. Law & Society Review. 39:3 (2005): p563-600
[18] As quoted by United States Government Mpringing Office. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/html/amdt15.html
[19] Chief Justice White. Guinn vs. United States Opinion
[20] Chief Justice White. Guinn vs. United States Opinion
[21] Chief Justice White. Guinn vs. United States Opinion
[22] As quoted by Wikipedia.
[23] Finkelman, Paul. Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History With Documents. New York: Bedford Books, 1997. p5
[24] Williams, Linda Faye. “The Constraint Of Race: Slavery, The Legacy Of The ‘White Citizen’ And American Social Policy”. http://www.yale.edu/glc/justice/williams.pdf Accessed 13 / 03 / 2006. p3
[25] Allen, Theodore W. The Invention Of The White Race, Volume One: Racial Oppression And Social Control. London: Verso, 1994. p46
[26] Chief Justice Taney. Dred Scott vs. Sandford Opinion
[27] Chief Justice Taney. Dred Scott vs. Sandford Opinion
[28] Chief Justice Taney. Dred Scott vs. Sandford Opinion
[29] Taken from ‘The Daily Picayune’ article Citizenship, dated March 21, 1857, as quoted in Finkelman, Paul. Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History With Documents. New York: Bedford Books, 1997. p132
[30] From the ‘New York Evening Post’ article The Supreme Court of the United States, dated March 7, 1857, as quoted in Finkelman, Paul. Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History With Documents. New York: Bedford Books, 1997. p147
[31] Finkelman, Paul. Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History With Documents. New York: Bedford Books, 1997. pg 2
[32] Herbert Storing, as cited by Graber, Mark A. “Desperately Ducking Slavery: Dred Scott And Contemporary Constitutional Theory”. Constitutional Commentary. 14:2 (Summer 1997): p271
[33] Williams, Linda Faye. “The Constraint Of Race: Slavery, The Legacy Of The ‘White Citizen’ And American Social Policy”. http://www.yale.edu/glc/justice/williams.pdf Accessed 13 / 03 / 2006. p3