1890s, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Context: In view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.
“The Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.”
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John Marshall 41
fourth Chief Justice of the United States 1755–1835Related quotes
Dissenting, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnett, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).
Judicial opinions
Excellence: Can We Be Equal and Excellent Too? (1961).
Homosexuality: Bipotenitality, Terminology, and History
Letter to M. L'Hommande, (1787), as quoted in The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia (1900), edited by John P. Foley, p. 500
1780s
But I am a Jew and glad to belong to the Jewish people, though I do not regard it in any way as chosen.
Letter to Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, 3 [5] April 1920, as quoted in Alice Calaprice, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010), p. 195; citing Israelitisches Wochenblatt, 42 September 1920, The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 7, Doc. 37, and Vol. 9, Doc 368.
1920s
Source: "Mr. Liao Zhongkai and Worker and Peasant Policy" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1926/09/26.htm (26 September 1926)