EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

EHS Abstract Submission
(c) 1998 EH.Net
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Name:  David E. Bernstein
Email:  dbernste at wpgate.gmu.edu
Institution:  George Mason University School of Law

Co-author:


Title:  Philip Sober Controlling Philip Drunk: Buchanan v. Warley  in
Historical Perspective

Internet Address of abstracted work:  Not available on the internet.

By mail:
3401 N. Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22201

Language:  English

Abstract:
 In the 1917 case of Buchanan v. Warley, the Supreme Court held that a
Louisville, Kentucky, residential segregation ordinance was
unconstitutional because it interfered with the rights to own and dispose
of property, and could not be justified as a police power measure.  Trends
in the legal world had not seemed favorable for a challenge to residential
segregation laws.  The Supreme Court's record on segregation issues was
abysmal.  Moreover, by the time Buchanan reached the Supreme Court, the
judiciary's role in restraining government was under severe intellectual
attack from Progressive supporters of sociological jurisprudence.
Fortunately, the Buchanan Court ignored contemporary racism and
sociological jurisprudence, and instead assumed the role assigned to it by
what this article calls "traditional jurisprudence" and protected
individual constitutional rights.
Buchanan did not have much of an impact on residential segregation, but it
did benefit African-Americans in several ways.	First, Buchanan ensured
that whites bore a far larger percentage of the cost of their
discriminatory attitudes than they would have if de jure segregation had
been approved by the Court.  Second, Buchanan prevented residential
segregation laws from being the leading edge of broader anti-black
measures. Finally, the NAACP's victory in  Buchanan ensured its survival
and signaled an extremely positive turning point in the Supreme Court's
jurisprudence on racial issues.

Bibliography:  Bernstein, David E.  "Philip Sober Controlling Philip Drunk:
Buchanan v. Warley  in Historical Perspective."  Vanderbilt Law Review,
Vol. 51, 797-879 (May 1998).


Subject:  X
Geographical Area:  7
Country/Region:  Southern United States
Time Period:  8

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