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The South Confronts the Court: The Southern Manifesto of 1956

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Anthony Badger
Anthony Badger
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Extract

On Monday, March 12, Georgia's senior senator, Walter George, rose in the Senate to read a manifesto blasting the Supreme Court. The Manifesto condemned the “unwarranted decision” of the Court in Brown as a “clear abuse of judicial power” in which the Court “with no legal basis for such action, undertook to exercise their naked judicial power and substituted their personal political and social ideas for the established law of the land.” The signers pledged themselves “to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.” It was signed by nineteen of the twenty-two southern senators, by every member of the congressional delegations from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia, by all but one of the representatives from Florida, all but one from Tennessee, all but three from North Carolina, and half of the Texas delegation.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 126 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2008

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References

Notes

1. Synott, Marcia, “Desegregation in South Carolina, 1950–63: Sometime Between ‘Now’ and ‘Never,’” Columbia Record, 27 01 1956Google Scholar. Harry Ashmore, Oral History Interview, Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin. (I am very grateful to Bill Leuchtenburg for this reference.) Quint, Howard, Profile in Black and White: A Frank Portrait of South Carolina (Washington, D.C., 1958).Google Scholar

2. Strom Thurmond to Arch Rowan, 27 March 1956; Thurmond to T. R. Waring, 13 March 1956; Richard B. Russell to Peter Wolff, 2 May 1968; Thurmond to Russell, 15 May 1968, Staff notes 15 May 1968, Papers of Strom Thurmond, Strom Thurmond Institute, Clemson University. Copies of all drafts of the Manifesto are kept in the Thurmond papers.

3. Wilkinson, J. Harvie III, Harry Byrd and the Changing Face of Virginia Politics, 1945–1966 (Charlottesville, 1968), 89–112Google Scholar. Hershman, James Howard Jr., “A Rumbling in the Museum: Opponents of Virginia's Massive Resistance” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1978), 1–188Google Scholar. E. R. Combs to Harry F. Byrd, 24 September 1954, Papers of Harry Flood Byrd, University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Howard Smith statement to Gray Commission; Howard Smith to Mrs. A. R. Tussey, 28 November 1955, Papers of Howard W. Smith, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

4. Richard B. Russell to Hayes Mizell, 30 April 1962, Russell Papers. Russell appears not to have sent this letter: it survives as a top copy and there is no sign of it in the Hayes Mizell Papers, Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia. I am very grateful to Hayes Mizell for permission to use these papers. Potenziani, Daniel David, “Look to the Past: Richard B. Russell and the Defense of White Supremacy” (Ph.D. diss., University of Georgia, 1981), 121–137, 154, 176Google Scholar. There is no evidence that Russell drafted the Manifesto only to protect his colleague Walter George from a primary challenge from Herman Talmadge, an argument commonly made at the time.

5. Potenziani, “Look to the Past,” 45–97, 171; Potenziani, Daniel D., “Striking Back: Richard B. Russell and Racial Relocation,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 65 (1981): 263–277.Google Scholar

6. Smith, Frank, Congressman from Mississippi: An Autobiography (New York, 1964), 321Google Scholar. Sherrill, Robert, Gothic Politics in the Deep South (New York, 1969), 189–234Google Scholar. Tris Coffin to Jonathan Daniels, 24 March 1956, Papers of Jonathan Daniels, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill. John Stennis to J. P. Coleman, 21 January 1956, Stennis to Walter Sillers, 28 January 11, 16 February 1956, Sillers to Stennis, 2, 9, 29 February 1956, Box 5 Series 29, Stennis to Editor, 12 March 1956, Papers of John C. Stennis, Congressional and Political Research Center, Mississippi State University. I am very grateful to Devin Caughey for these references.

7. Notes file 9/619; William Finlator to Irving Carlyle, 21 May 1954; Jeff Johnson to Carlyle, 21 May 1854; Jonathan Daniels to Carlyle, 21 May 1954; Gladys Tillett to Carlyle, 30 May 1954, Papers of Irving Carlyle, Southern Baptist Historical Collection, Wake Forest University.

8. Speech, 28 April 1955; Samuel J. Ervin to Reed Sarratt, 7 June 1955; Ervin to John H. Kerr Jr., 16 September 1955, Papers of Samuel J. Ervin Jr., Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill.

9. Mrs. H. V. Harmon to John Sparkman, 7 March 1956; Robert L. Shirley to Sparkman, 15 February 1956; Sparkman to Newton S. Chamblee, 24 January 1956; Sparkman to Sammie Matthews, 18 February 1956; Sparkman to John Nolen, 23 June 1956; Sam Engelhardt to Sparkman, 15 May 1956, Papers of John Sparkman, W. S. Hoole Library, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

10. Hamilton, Lister Hill, 211–23, 284–85; Martin, John Bartlow, The Deep South Says “Never” (London, 1958), 107Google Scholar; Eliott, Carl Sr. and D'Orso, Michael, The Cost of Courage: The Journey of an American Congressman (New York, 1992), 178–182.Google Scholar

11. John Horne to Lister Hill, 20 October 1955; Tully A. Goodwin to Hill, 22 February 1956; Bart P. Chamberlain to Hill, 2 March 1956, Papers of Lister Hill, W. S. Hoole Library, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. John Sparkman interview, Southern Oral History Program, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill.

12. Clipping, St. Petersburg Times, 11 October 1970; Spessard L. Holland to James M. Howard, 19 March 1956; Holland to Mrs. A. L. Anderson, 27 March 1956. Papers of Spessard L. Holland, P. K. Yonge Library, University of Florida, Gainesville.

13. Arkansas Gazette, 7, 18, 24, 25, 26 February; 16 March 1956; Arkansas Democrat 8, 23 January; 8, 25 February 1956.

14. Typed statement [n.d], Papers of J. William Fulbright, Special Collection Division, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville; Woods, Randall B., Fulbright: A Biography (New York, 1995), 202–204.Google Scholar

15. Woods, Fulbright, 202–4, 211; Woods, Randall B., “Dixie”s Dove: J. William Fulbright, the Vietnam War, and the American South,” Journal of Southern History (1994): 538, 540, 541.Google Scholar

16. Brooks Hays interview, 1970, 26–28, Columbia University Library, and Brooks Hays interview, 1971, LBJ Library, both interviews in Lawrence Brooks Hays Papers, Special Collections Divisions, University of Arkansas Library, Fayetteville. Orval Faubus interview, with John Kirk, 3 December 1992, Newcastle University Oral History Program, Newcastle, England.

17. Elaine Mays Paul to Terry Sanford, 31 May 1954, Papers of W. Kerr Scott, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh.

18. Jonathan Houghton, “The Politics of Sly Resistance”; Sylvia Ellis, “The Road to Massive Resistance: North Carolina and the Brown Decision” (unpublished papers in the author's possession).

19. None of the segregationist letters from the Patriots survive in Scott's papers, but Charles Deane's legislative assistant, John Lang, asked Scott's assistant, Ben Roney, how they were responding and he noted the responses for Deane, memorandum, John Lang, 3 February 1956, Papers of Charles B. Deane, Southern Baptist Historical Collection, Wake Forest University, Winston Salem; “North Carolina's Man on the Hill,” Carolina Alumni Review (Spring 1984): 13–14. H. G. Jones, interview with the author, 13 August 1984; William Cochrane interview with the author, September 1988.

20. Dallek, Robert, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960 (New York, 1991), 138–143Google Scholar, 496–97. Memo, George Reedy to Lyndon Johnson, 12 July 1956, Box 423, Office Files of George Reedy, 1956–57, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin.

21. I have analyzed the Texas nonsigners in “Southerners who did not sign the Southern Manifesto,” Historical Journal 42, no. 2 (1999): 517–534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Sam Rayburn to Miss M. R. Bruton, 3 July 1954, J. T. Rutherford, Allan Shivers Oral History Interviews, Sam Rayburn Papers, Barker Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin; Austin-American, 8 March 1956. Memorandum on campaign for control of Texas delegation, Box 419.2, Reedy Office Files, Johnson Library; Bruce Alger speech, 24 September 1956, Bruce Alger Papers, Dallas Public Library; Bruce Alger Oral History Interview, Dallas Public Library.

23. New York Times, 12 March, 3 April 1956. Speech draft 1956; Estes Kefauver to P. L. Prattis, 19 May 1956; Kefauver to B. L. Fonville, 10 May 1956, Kefauver Papers.

24. Albert Gore to Mrs. Talley, 12 October 1954, Papers of Albert Gore, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro; Gardner, James B., “Political Leadership in a Period of Transition: Frank G. Clement, Albert Gore, Estes Kefauver, and Tennessee Politics, 1948–1956” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1978), 500–670Google Scholar. Albert Gore Sr., interview with the author, 1 December 1990; Albert Gore interview, 13 March 1976, Southern Oral History Program, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill. Donald Davidson to Albert Gore, 12 March 1956; Fred Childress to Gore, 12 March 1956; Sims Crownover to Gore, 19 April 1956, Gore Papers.

25. Albert Gore Sr., interview with the author, 1 December 1990; Albert Gore to Pat Hughes, 12 April 1956, Gore Papers; Nashville Tennessean, 13, 18 March 1956. Graham, Hugh Davis, Crisis in Print: Desegregation and the Press in Tennessee (Nashville, 1967), 29–90Google Scholar. Miss Jean Scraggs to Albert Gore, 28 January 1956, Gore Papers.

26. Miami Herald, 8, 11, 12 March 1956; Interview with Dante Fascell, 27 February 1997.

27. Clipping, Henderson Times-News, 14 March 1956; Harold D. Cooley to H. Q. Dorsett, 13 March 1956, Papers of Harold Dunbar Cooley, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill; Christian, Ralph J., “The Folger-Chatham Congressional Primary of 1946,” North Carolina Historical Review 53 (1976): 25–53Google Scholar. Raleigh News and Observer, 18 May 1954. Winston—Salem Journal, 18 May 1954.

28. Charles B. Deane to Fay Allen, 21 November 1951, Notes for schools and colleges [n.d.]; Notes, 22 November 1956, Deane Papers; Deane to Herman Hardison, 27 March 1956; John A. Lang to Charles B. Deane, 23 April 1956, Papers of John A. Lang, East Carolina Manuscript Collection, East Carolina University, Greenville, N.C. Charles B. Deane to Walter Lambeth, 22 October 1952, Papers of Charles B. Deane, Southern Baptist Historical Collections, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem. Charles B. Deane Jr., interview with the author, 12 September 1989.

29. Charles B. Deane Jr., interview with the author, 12 September 1989. Charles B. Deane to Mrs. P. A. Wood, 28 July 1956, Lang Papers; Lewis S. Cannon to Charles B. Deane, 15 March 1956; Leaflet [n.d.]; Deane to James E. Griffin, 7 May 1956; J. B. Hood to Deane, 24 April 1956; “Pete” to Deane [n.d.]; Julius Fry to Deane, 19 June 1956; Nina Duke Wood to Deane, 26 July 1956, Deane Papers.

30. Anon to Thurmond Chatham [n.d.]; Dallas Gwynn to Chatham, 24 March 1956; I. F. Young to Chatham, 13 May 1956; L. van Noppen to Thurmond Chatham, 8 March 1956; Ralph Scott adverts; Papers of Thurmond Chatham, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh. Greensboro Daily News, 10, 13 April 1956; Winston-Salem Journal, 19 April 1956.

31. Debnam Adverts, Cooley Papers; Raleigh News and Observer, 17 March 1956. Memorandum, 19 March 1956, Papers of Waldemar Eros Debnam, East Carolina Manuscript Collection, East Carolina University, Greenville. Ermine B. Hampton to Barbara Dearing [n.d.]; Debnam Adverts, Cooley Papers. Raleigh News and Observer, 14 March 1956, 6 April 1956.

32. Cooley to E. L. Cannon, 3 April 1956; Nashville (N.C.) speech, 7 April 1956; Henderson speech, 17 May 1956; WTVD speech, Cooley Papers; Thurmond Chatham to Hiden Ramsey, 31 May 1956; Chatham to Ralph Howland, 5 June 1956, Chatham Papers.