March 12, 1956: The Southern Manifesto

Southern Senators, led by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina

March 12, 1956, 70 years ago: The Declaration of Constitutional Principles is signed, by 19 members of the U.S. Senate and 82 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, all from States that had been in the Confederate States of America.

Since there was not a goddamned thing about it that was constitutional, it became known as the Southern Manifesto, allowing people on the right side of the struggle for civil rights to do what these rednecks had been doing to them for years: Comparing them to Communists.

The main author was Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. In 1948, as his State's Governor, he had briefly left the Democratic Party to run as the nominee for President of the States' Rights Party. From that point onward, Southern Democrats who opposed civil rights were known as "Dixiecrats."

It was written in response to the unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, 2 years earlier, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declaring that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

The Declaration included these words: "The unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court in the public school cases is now bearing the fruit always produced when men substitute naked power for established law."

This was a bald-faced lie: The decision was warranted, and it was a strike against naked power, in the form of "Jim Crow" laws that overturned established law.

It also said: "The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does the 14th Amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding the submission of the 14th Amendment clearly show that there was no intent that it should affect the system of education maintained by the States."

This was true, but it covered up the text of the 14th Amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This is known as the Equal Protection Clause.

It also said: "This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding."

This was a lie: There had not been friendship. And the Court's decision didn't create confusion; it clarified the law.

Three Democratic Senators from Southern States did not sign: Albert Gore and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, and the Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas. In the House, 16 of 21 Democrats from Texas refused to sign it, including the Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, and a future Speaker, Jim Wright. Also refusing to sign were 3 of the 11 Democrats from North Carolina; and 1 of the 7 from Florida, Dante Fascell.

The following year, Thurmond launched the longest filibuster the Senate had yet seen, in a vain attempt to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, he became the 1st Dixiecrat to switch to the Republican Party. There would be many more.

Thurmond turned out to be the last-serving member who signed the Southern Manifesto, serving until 2003, shortly after his 100th birthday, and dying a few months later. The last surviving signer was Richard Poff of Virginia, who died in 2011.

The last-serving member who refused to sign was Jack Brooks of Texas, who served until 1994. The last surviving refuser was the aforementioned Jim Wright, who died in 2015.