Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/238

 suppose a railroad from Ohio to Indiana has only a few miles of its track in Kentucky and only two depôts in that State. Must the railroad furnish separate accommodations for the white and colored passengers going between those two points in Kentucky? If these questions had been asked thirty years ago or at the time of the Hall v. DeCuir case, there is no doubt that the Federal courts would have held that it was an unwarranted interference with interstate commerce or would lead to too much confusion.

The law of Alabama of 1891 contained the provision that "this act shall not apply to cases where white or colored passengers enter this State upon such railroads under contract for their transportation made in other States where like laws to this do not prevail." Since these laws, however, have become so prevalent throughout the South, the courts seem to have swung over to the side of public opinion. In 1889, the Supreme Court of Mississippi held[43] that though the "Jim Crow" law of that State applied only to intrastate travel, it was not an unwarranted burden upon interstate railroads to require them to furnish separate accommodations for the races as soon as they came across the State line.

In 1894, the "Jim Crow" law of Kentucky was declared unconstitutional by the Federal Circuit Court[44] because the language of the acts was so comprehensive as to embrace all passengers, whether their passage commenced or ended within the State or otherwise and thus interfered with interstate commerce. Four years later, however, the Court of Appeals[45] of Kentucky, considering the same statute, ruled that the law of that State was not in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment or the "interstate