The Dixiecrats - Would We Have Been Better Off Had Thurmond Won in 1948?

The New York Times this morning carried a report which, if true, is just about the best political news of the year. Indeed, it may be the most significant development since the advent of the New Deal.

Although a New Yorker born and bred, I was a staunch supporter of the Thurmond movement; a good friend of mine headed the Columbia Students for Thurmond, which I believe was the only such collegiate movement north of the Mason-Dixon line.

My support, however, was not extremely enthusiastic, because, although I agreed wholeheartedly with the platform and Thurmond’s campaign speeches, I felt that it was keyed too much to purely Southern interests. Sure, the Civil Tyranny program must be combatted, but what about the myriad invasions of states rights in other fields by the power-hungry Washington bureaucracy? In other words, while you always claimed that yours was a national movement, by talking only of the Civil Tyranny program you threw away any attraction to Northern and Western voters.

I have always felt that it is imperative for the States Rights movement to establish itself on a nation-wide scale. Obviously, we are now living in a one-party system, a party of Socialists in fact if not in name, and only courageous Southern Democrats in Congress have so far blocked their program. But as far as Presidential elections go, the Republicans are through – the Socialist Administration has too much power to bribe voters with wild promises. If things go on as they are, it is only a question of a few years for the socialist program to go through and destroy this land of liberty.

Therefore it is essential to form a new party, of States Righters, consisting of Southern Democrats and real Republicans (omitting the me-too Republicans) to launch a dynamic offensive against National Socialism in this country before it is too late. I am greatly elated over your new platform because I believe it points in that direction.

Would you please send me a copy of your new platform and constitution? Do you plan to start a newspaper of nation-wide circulation? This would be of great help in establishing a national States Rights movement.

I would like to add that, as an economist, I enthusiastically support your proposals on national debt and taxes – in fact, taken all and all, from the news reports I would say that your new platform is one of the best in American history. Indeed, it is one of the finest political statements in America since Calhoun’s Exposition.

It could grow into a mighty movement if you have the will and vision. There are millions of Americans throughout the country, Republicans and Democrats, who would flock to your banner. They are weary of being led by the nose by New Deal politicians of both parties – they are tired of being deprived of their votes because there is no anti-socialist and pro-liberty party to which they can turn.

You, gentlemen, can be a means of succor for these millions - and not only these, but America itself. National Socialism has always meant poverty, tyranny, and war. America is slipping down the road and has already gone far; it must be restored to the right path if the great dream of our forefathers of a nation dedicated to liberty is not to vanish from the earth. Yours can be that mission.

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), the founder of modern libertarianism and the dean of the Austrian School of economics, was the author of The Ethics of Liberty and For a New Liberty and many other books and articles. He was also academic vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and the Center for Libertarian Studies, and the editor – with Lew Rockwell – of The Rothbard-Rockwell Report.

That is all fine and well, but explain to me how you would have gotten rid of Jim Crow, or slavery for that matter, without federal involvement.

Not only that, but it is a proper use of federal power and force to ensure that states adhere to the core provisions of the Constitution. Jim Crow was a direct violation of the concept of equal protection. Plessy v. Ferguson even tacitly admitted the importance of the concept, with its "separate but equal" langauge. Since forced segregation was anything but equal, that nullified Plessey and justified federal force to make states adhere to the Constituiton.

I only desire that the Federal government be restricted to only those powers delineated to it under the Constitution.

And eliminating Jim Crow was a valid federal action under the Constitution. States do NOT have the right to violate the fundamental constitutional rights of their citizens - and Jim Crow was a direct affront to the concept of equal protection. The Dixiecrats took a noble concept, states rights, and, by trying to wrap it around their sordid actions, instead fouled the core concepts they claimed they were standing for - and to this day, opponents of states rights simply point to 1948 as an effective means of trashing any good arguments in favor of states rights. And by bringing this up now, Lott just set federalism back several years.

The law recognizes several degrees of culpability in killing people, which is why there are distinctions between murder and manslaughter. But one could argue that the segregationists of yore were not motivated by ill will and that the liberals of today are not weak, but following the consequences of their worldview

If we compare a public school board of trustees in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1922 treating black students in an inferior manner by not spending as much per pupil and their successors in 2002 failing to enforce an orderly atmosphere, both are negligent actions. In the former case, no doubt the trustees believed blacks were an inferior race and thus it was considered wasteful to spend as much on their education as on white students. In the latter case, the trustees may believe that tough-minded discipline would be harmful to the psyches of students. In both cases, the trustees may believe their motivations are good ones, but the consequences in both cases are disastrous.

Slavery should have been abolished in 1788 by mutual consent, not in 1865 after the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the ruination of much of the South.

There was no mutual consent to end it on the part of the slave holding states. And 73 years later there was still no desire to end it on the part of the slave-holding states.

Lott is no friend of limited government or even of Western civ. for that matter. His remarks could be construed to match the worst of the segragationist rhetoric that dehumanized blacks and therefore if he believed anything of all of Strom's old politcal movement he would clarify his meanings, but he won't because he simply lacks the intellectual skills to give anything more than genteel racist remarks. What a sad state of affairs we arrive at the evil Democrats matching the worst white racist in their efforts at powermongering thru dehumanization (think Nazi). We have conservatives labeling themselves Christian (Noonan, Bennet) who mistake political equality for equality of human life as the gift from God and in the end sound like Democrats.

If we did, people could defend their freedom by voting with their feet rather than relying a federal leviathan which will *never* be satisfied with limiting its power to defending "rights."

I tend to blame the founders for this problem. You cannot create a limited-government system that also allows a group to be denied their core federal rights by the underlying entities. Had the founders addressed slavery at the time the Constitution were written, much of the justification for federal expansion of powers would have been nullified right there and then.

The 14th Amendment did extend the rights delineated in the Bill of Rights to the states. This amendment would have justified the elimination of laws that required separation of the races in public accomodations or inferior treatment with respect to government services, such as public schools or city-owned transit. However, the "public accomodation" provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Housing Act of 1968 went beyond the powers granted under the 14th Amendment. These acts extended Federal authority into private matters, such as the sale of housing, the rental or sale of real property, and the operation of common carriers such as bus lines. If one adheres to the original intent of the Framers, these acts were not justified under the Constitution.

If you are embarassed by the Dixiecrats espousing states' rights, are you also embarassed by the Ku Klux Klan's support of the Second Amendment or the ACLU's defense of the First Amendment? Because the People for the American Way support separation of church and state, would you call for a theocracy? Should we have stayed out of the European theater of World War II because Joe Stalin was our ally? Should we not have signed a defense treaty with Spain because Franco was an autocratic dictator? The liberals will use any wedge, legitimate or not, to attack conservative positions.

Conservatives must sear into their consciences two facts: they will never please liberals and they should not try to do so. Lott's remarks only set back states rights to the extent that conservatives let themselves be cowed by the liberal media and mainstream culture.

Well...perhaps we would have better off staying with the Articles of Confederation. The Articles, after all, did not have Fugitive Slave clause and even if it had, it was incapable of providing any federal protection of slavery.

Having said that, my own view is that (within the 1787 Constitutional context), the best approach for conservatives in the 1940s and 1950s would have been to have pushed aggressively for voting rights e.g. enforcement of the 15th Amendment. Having said that, it is interesting to note that many GOP consrvatives (including Goldwater!) supported an early version of the 1957 CR act which had tough rules on voting rights. The Act was later watered down by LBJ and the "moderates" and made completely toothless.

If blacks in Mississippi, for example, had had voting rights, they could have defended their rights and the subsequent CR Act which ultimately morphed into the quota monster.

I tend to agree about the 14th Amendment but conservatives dropped the ball by not pushing for enforcement of the plain language of the 15th amendment which, had it been enforced, would have taken all the steam out of the push for the CR of 1964. Unfortunately, Thurmond and company were bitter enemies of the 15th amendment. Their goal was to keep blacks in second class status, pure and simple.

"However, the Equal Housing Act of 1968 and the public accomodation sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went beyond the 14th Amendment provision for equality in governmental action..."

Nice sleight of hand, but the 1948 Dixiecrats were not resisting the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Dixiecrats were resisting, in effect, the XIVth and XVth Amendments—heck, they were practically resisting the XIIIth Amendment. But if the federal government has no legitimate authority to prevent states' violations of Constitutional rights reserved for the people or prohibited to the states, the entire document becomes meaningless. If the federal government cannot enforce the XIVth and XVth Amendments, then it also cannot enforce Article IV, Section 4, and there's nothing to prevent a state from reverting to monarchy.

I absolutely concur that the civil "rights" movement of the 60s trampled the Constitution by equating private, voluntary action with coercive government action. However, the Democrats of the 40s had no more respect for freedom of association than the Democrats of today do. Strom Thurmond repudiated their beliefs long ago, and I'm stunned that so many Republicans here find it hard to do the same. Just because the Dixiecrats used to be the enemy of our enemy, that does not make them our friend.

These acts extended Federal authority into private matters, such as the sale of housing, the rental or sale of real property, and the operation of common carriers such as bus lines. If one adheres to the original intent of the Framers, these acts were not justified under the Constitution.

I agree. Federal action seldom stops where it should - therefore, the states would have been better off reforming themselves rather than creating a situation where the feds were justified in acting. As a result, we are ALL paying for it now.

If you are embarassed by the Dixiecrats espousing states' rights, are you also embarassed by the Ku Klux Klan's support of the Second Amendment or the ACLU's defense of the First Amendment?

I would not stand with the KKK on the 2nd A - I would distance myself, because the gun-grabbers would use the KKK to paint us all as racist gun nuts. The ACLU is nowhere near the same as the KKK - I can agree with a group in some areas and disagree in others - it is not an all or nothing proposition, whether you try to make it such.

Because the People for the American Way support separation of church and state, would you call for a theocracy?

That's an absurd attempt at logic.

Should we have stayed out of the European theater of World War II because Joe Stalin was our ally?

Sometimes you don't have a choice. But it's silly to try to equate WWII with fighting segregationism and bigotry.

In 1788, all but two states were slaveholding. In the 1780s, northern New Jersey and southeastern New York had slave populations as high as much of the South outside the Tidewater plantation areas. The blame for the continuation of slavery after 1788 was not just a Southern one. Even after the admission of the Northwest Territory as free states and the end of slavery in New York, New Jersey, et. al., there was no universal opposition to the existence of slavery in the free states. Remember that abolitionists were widely unpopular in large parts of the free states, particularly those areas Kevin Phillips defines as the non-Yankee North, extending from what is now metropolitan New York City to the southern half of Illinois.

In 1788, 11 out of 13 states were slaveholding; by 1860, 15 out of 34 permitted the institution. In the 72 year period, due to the increased admission of free states and the abolition of slavery in the Northeastern states, slave states went from the majority to the minority.

Thus, "slave states" of 1788 were different from those of 1860.

I only desire that the Federal government be restricted to only those powers delineated to it under the Constitution. I would also prefer that governmental authority, especially on the Federal level, not restrict the exercise of property rights nor inhibit freedom of association. If that leads to greater mingling or increased separation of the races, so be it. - WallaceT

I'll give a bump to your courageous remarks throughout this thread. In my view, the cures have proved to be far worse than the diseases.
35 po -JJDKII-

Well said JD.

-- As we see from some of the replies here, a typical disruptors agenda is being displayed, -- in an effort to shift the threads constitutional topic into a flame war about race:

"Ah, yes. Let's talk about couching a yearn for segregation, Jim Crow laws & keepin' dem n--gras in their place in hifalutin' words." -catspaw-

"Free Republic is a place for people to discuss our common goals regarding the restoration of our constitutionally limited republican form of government. If people have other agendas for FR, I really wish they would take them elsewhere.
Thanks, Jim
226 posted on 2/7/02 4:01 PM Pacific by Jim Robinson

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