Pace v. Alabama (1883)
Pace v. Alabama was the first instance of miscegenation appearing in the Supreme Court. In 1881, Tony Pace, an African American man, and Mary J. Cox, a white woman, were each sentenced two years in prison for cohabiting together and living in “a state of fornication or adultery” under Alabama’s anti-miscegenation statute. While interracial offenders were penalized two to seven years in prison, same-race offenders were only given a $100 fine and up to six months of hard labor or imprisonment. The couple appealed to the Supreme Court due to Alabama's more severe punishment on interracial adulterers than same-race adulterers, citing the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Alabama, stating no racial discrimination was involved in Alabama’s laws because each party of the interracial couple was given equal punishment.
[Click here to see the court proceedings.]
[Click here to see the court proceedings.]
"[Interracial cohabitation jeopardizes] the highest interests of government and society for it could result in the the amalgamation of the two races, producing a mongrel population and a degraded civilization,"
(Wallenstein 112).
-Alabama Supreme Court (1881)
(Wallenstein 112).
-Alabama Supreme Court (1881)
"Whatever discrimination is made in the punishment prescribed in the two sections is directed against the offense designated and not against the person of any particular color or race" (Wallenstein 114).
-Justice Stephan Field, U.S. Supreme Court (1883)
-Justice Stephan Field, U.S. Supreme Court (1883)