invalid as to
the duty of the railroad to respect it.

In the case of _Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company_ v.
_Kentucky_,[42] this doctrine was carried to its logical conclusion.
The question was whether a proper construction of the separate car law
confines its operation to passengers whose journeys commence and end
within the boundaries of the State or whether a reasonable
interpretation of the act requires Negro passengers to be assigned to
separate coaches when traveling from or to points in other States. In
other such cases the Supreme Court of the United States had
interpreted the local law as applying only to interstate commerce. The
language of the first section of the Kentucky statute made it very
clear that it applied to all carriers. The first section of the
Kentucky law follows:

"Any railroad company or corporation, person or persons, running
or otherwise operation of railroad cars or coaches by steam or
otherwise, in any railroad line or track within this State, and
all railroad companies, person or persons, doing business in this
State, whether upon lines or railroads owned in part or whole, or
leased by them; and all railroad companies, person or persons,
operating railroad lines that may hereafter be built under
existing charters, or charters that may hereafter be granted in
this State; and all foreign corporations, companies, person or
persons, organized under charters granted, or that may be
hereafter granted by any other State, who may be now, or may
hereafter be engaged in running or operating any of the railroads
of this State, whether in part or whole, are hereby required to
furnish separate coaches or cars for travel or transportation of
the white and colored passengers on their respective lines of
railroad."

Any sane man can see that this law undertook to regulate interstate
commerce. Justice Brown, however, tried to square the opinion with
that of the Kentucky Supreme Court, upholding the law on the grounds
that it was constitutional in as much as it applied only to intrastate
passenger traffic, although the law plainly applies also to interstate
traffic.

Speaking further for the court, Justice Brown said: "Indeed we are by
no means satisfied that the Court of Appeals did not give the correct
construction to this statute in limiting its operation to domestic
commerce. It is scarcely courteous to impute to