Drawing heavily on that case, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the US Supreme Court noted that laws requiring racial separation were “generally, if not universally” understood as appropriate exercise of states’ “police power.” Any exercise of the police power must be “reasonable,” the court acknowledged, and “enacted in good faith for the promotion of the public good, and not for the annoyance or oppression of a particular class.” Working from that standard, the court found that a Louisiana law that required racial segregation on railroads was indeed a “reasonable regulation” consistent with
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