The Truth about the Dixiecrats What they were about.

National Review ^ | Dec 16,2002 | Dave Kopel

[Kay Soze]

Hmmm I thought the reason was defense and budget?

Character Matters

[dirtboy]

Great post. This should take the wind of of the sails of those who applaud the Dixiecrats for states-rights reasons. Unfortunately, it probably won't, so I'll repeat this again:

States' rights were not a legitimate constitutional basis for states to violate the constitutional rights of their citizens.

[Republic of Texas]

All you need to know:

" Thurmond bolted the 1948 Democratic Convention... "

Segregationists back then, as they are today, were Democrats.

[OWK]

States' rights were not a legitimate constitutional basis for states to violate the constitutional rights of their citizens.

And certainly not a moral basis either.

Good to see you.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Lott has set back the Republican Party 54 years. Stupid bastard !

[Kay Soze]

And lets make sure we keep the racists in the democratic party wher they should have stayed and out of the GOP. We will be bettr of for it.

Dirtboy what's one of the points here is that it takes the wind out of the : Dixiecrat for budget and defense argument Lottbots raise.


Charcter Matters

[JohnGalt]

This is a solid analysis for why Conservative libertarian republicans should have rejected the perhaps seductive State's Rights/Dixiecrats in 1948, but does not take into account that the alternatives were Truman and Dewey-Warren. Warren did about as much as anyone in the 20th Century to change the interpretation to the Consitution.

I think I would have probably sat 1948 out.

[Austin Willard Wright]

H.L. Mencken, the great libertarian writer, also sat out that election but wrote some wonderful pieces about it. Mencken praised Thurmond as a gentleman and lampooned Henry Wallace as a crazy. However, he also said that if he had to live in a world populated by delegates to Wallace's convention or delegates at Thurmond's convention, he would choose the former.

[Mr. Bird]

Hypocritically, he later voted to impeach President Clinton for obstruction of justice and perjury — although the Clinton offenses had occurred in the context of a private civil-rights lawsuit, whereas Nixon had been obstructing a criminal investigation about a presidential election.

Just a little nitpicking, you'd think we'd all have a grip on the appropriate terminology now: Senator Lott could not vote to impeach Clinton, for impeachment is the sole prerogative of the House. Senator Lott may have voted to convict Clinton, but chose to provide an environment that would make said conviction an impossibility. In BOTH instances (Nixon and Clinton), he behaved in a manner to save asses that didn't deserve saving.

[dirtboy]

And certainly not a moral basis either. Good to see you.

Good seeing you, also. As I was saying to folks last week on this subject, we all would have been much better off had the states in question cleaned up their own act instead of trying to wrap their racism in the mantle of states rights - because it associated the noble concept of states rights with segregation and racism, and it justified the intiation of federal action against the states to enforce equal protect - but of course, once the federal camel's nose was in the tent, eventually the entire camel crawled in as well, with edicts that went far beyond enforcing Constitutional rights.

[dirtboy]

I think I would have probably sat 1948 out.

I guess every generation has their particular elections where they have to hold their noses when voting.

[Stingray51]

One small nitpick regarding this statement: No senator outdid Strom Thurmond in the 1960s for outraged denunciation of the Supreme Court's strict enforcement of the criminal-procedure provisions of the Bill of Rights.

What many conservatives opposed was the "incorporation" doctrine by which selected portions of the federal bill of rights (most notably not including the 2nd Amendment) were enforced by the Supreme Court against the states without any constitutional basis for doing so. Even after the adoption of the 14th Amendment, decades passed before anyone made a serious argument that somehow it federalized the Bill of Rights (except with respect to discriminatory treatment of Blacks). Most Americans are painfully unaware that, as originally adopted, the Bill of Rights offered protections from the federal government only. For example, the First Amendment begins, "Congress shall make no law..." (Several states even had official religions back when the Bill of Rights was ratified and nobody suggested they were violative of it.) Today, most of us unthinkingly accept the notion that we have rights with respect to state governments that are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, without realizing that this was really a liberal contrivance of much more recent vintage.

[justshutupandtakeit]

My only problem with the article is the claim that there was a plausible case to be made that secession was constitutional. There is not and it was not. Not only that but States have no rights under the constitution.

[rdf]

Outstanding post.

Cheers,

Richard F.

[RonF]

Segregationists back then, as they are today, were Democrats.

So are you maintaining that back in 1948 Republicans were all in favor of integration, and that there were no segregationists in the GOP then?

[dirtboy]

My only problem with the article is the claim that there was a plausible case to be made that secession was constitutional. There is not and it was not.

That is a matter of viable debate, but is secondary to the issues of 1948.

Not only that but States have no rights under the constitution.

Say WHAT? Read the 10th Amendment lately? Or do you only believe in ENUMERATED rights?

[Bogolyubski]

I really didn't know much about the Dixiecrat platform, or about Lott and Thurmond's hypocracy on obstruction of justice-impeachment. This is a very damaging article - he's right to point out the difference between pricipled opposition to aspects of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (on constitutional grounds by Goldwater and others) and the promotion of states' rights simply to allow states to violate the constitution. Lott is toast.

[Republic of Texas]

History is replete with nefarious characters wrapping their perverted causes in a noble one. Our leaders , and voters should've been discerning enough to see that, then.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

The 10th amendment grants all powers not expressed in the Constitution or the first nine amendments to the states, right?

[Austin Willard Wright]

Well...the 15th Amendment clearly applied to the states. Indeed, that was the whole point of it! Thurmond opposed implementation of that amendment too. Interestingly, had the 15th Amendment been effectively enforced in 1948, it could be argued that all the steam would have been taken out of the later movement for a federal CR law which violated property rights.