The Southern Manifesto

"The Southern Manifesto"
[From Congressional Record, 84th Congress Second Session. Vol. 102, part
4 (March 12, 1956). Washington, D.C.: Governmental Printing Office, 1956.
4459-4460.]
THE DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT IN THE SCHOOL
CASES - DECLARATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES
Mr. [Walter F.] GEORGE. Mr. President, the increasing gravity of the
situation following the decision of the Supreme Court in the so-called
segregation cases, and the peculiar stress in sections of the country where
this decision has created many difficulties, unknown and unappreciated,
perhaps, by many people residing in other parts of the country, have led
some Senators and some Members of the House of Representatives to
prepare a statement of the position which they have felt and now feel to be
imperative.
I now wish to present to the Senate a statement on behalf of 19 Senators,
representing 11 States, and 77 House Members, representing a considerable
number of States likewise. . . .
DECLARATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES
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.
The Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution of checks and balances because
they realized the inescapable lesson of history that no man or group of men
can be safely entrusted with unlimited power. They framed this Constitution
with its provisions for change by amendment in order to secure the
fundamentals of government against the dangers of temporary popular
passion or the personal predilections of public officeholders.
We regard the decisions of the Supreme Court in the school cases as a clear
abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal Judiciary
undertaking to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress, and to
encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people.
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.
The very Congress which proposed the amendment subsequently provided
for segregated schools in the District of Columbia.
When the amendment was adopted in 1868, there were 37 States of the
Union. . . .
Every one of the 26 States that had any substantial racial differences among
its people, either approved the operation of segregated schools already in
existence or subsequently established such schools by action of the same
law-making body which considered the 14th Amendment.
As admitted by the Supreme Court in the public school case (Brown v.
Board of Education), the doctrine of separate but equal schools "apparently
originated in Roberts v. City of Boston (1849), upholding school segregation
against attack as being violative of a State constitutional guarantee of
equality." This constitutional doctrine began in the North, not in the South,
and it was followed not only in Massachusetts, but in Connecticut, New
York, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and other northern states until they, exercising their rights as
states through the constitutional processes of local self-government, changed
their school systems.
In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 the Supreme Court expressly
declared that under the 14th Amendment no person was denied any of his
rights if the States provided separate but equal facilities. This decision has
been followed in many other cases. It is notable that the Supreme Court,
speaking through Chief Justice Taft, a former President of the United States,
unanimously declared in 1927 in Lum v. Rice that the "separate but equal"
principle is "within the discretion of the State in regulating its public schools
and does not conflict with the 14th Amendment."
This interpretation, restated time and again, became a part of the life of the
people of many of the States and confirmed their habits, traditions, and way
of life. It is founded on elemental humanity and commonsense, for parents
should not be deprived by Government of the right to direct the lives and
education of their own children.

Though there has been no constitutional amendment or act of Congress
changing this established legal principle almost a century old, the Supreme
Court of the United States, 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.
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.
Without regard to the consent of the governed, outside mediators are
threatening immediate and revolutionary changes in our public schools
systems. If done, this is certain to destroy the system of public education in
some of the States.
With the gravest concern for the explosive and dangerous condition created
by this decision and inflamed by outside meddlers:
We reaffirm our reliance on the Constitution as the fundamental law of the
land.
We decry the Supreme Court's encroachment on the rights reserved to the
States and to the people, contrary to established law, and to the Constitution.
We commend the motives of those States which have declared the intention
to resist forced integration by any lawful means.
We appeal to the States and people who are not directly affected by these
decisions to consider the constitutional principles involved against the time
when they too, on issues vital to them may be the victims of judicial
encroachment.
Even though we constitute a minority in the present Congress, we have full
faith that a majority of the American people believe in the dual system of
government which has enabled us to achieve our greatness and will in time
demand that the reserved rights of the States and of the people be made
secure against judicial usurpation.
We pledge ourselves 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.
In this trying period, as we all seek to right this wrong, we appeal to our
people not to be provoked by the agitators and troublemakers invading our
States and to scrupulously refrain from disorder and lawless acts.
Signed by:
MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE
Walter F. George, Richard B. Russell, John Stennis, Sam J. Ervin, Jr., Strom
Thurmond, Harry F. Byrd, A. Willis Robertson, John L. McClellan, Allen J.
Ellender, Russell B. Long, Lister Hill, James O. Eastland, W. Kerr Scott,
John Sparkman, Olin D. Johnston, Price Daniel, J.W. Fulbright, George A.
Smathers, Spessard L. Holland.
MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES
Alabama: Frank W. Boykin, George M. Grant, George W. Andrews,
Kenneth A. Roberts, Albert Rains, Armistead I. Selden, Jr., Carl Elliott,
Robert E. Jones, George Huddleston, Jr.
Arkansas: E.C. Gathings, Wilbur D. Mills, James W. Trimble, Oren Harris,
Brooks Hays, W.F. Norrell.
Florida: Charles E. Bennett, Robert L.F. Sikes, A.S. Herlong, Jr., Paul G.
Rogers, James A. Haley, D.R. Matthews.
Georgia: Prince H. Preston, John L. Pilcher, E.L. Forrester, John James
Flynt, Jr., James C. Davis, Carl Vinson, Henderson Lanham, Iris F. Blitch,
Phil M. Landrum, Paul Brown.

Louisiana: F. Edward Hebert, Hale Boggs, Edwin E. Willis, Overton
Brooks, Otto E. Passman, James H. Morrison, T. Ashton Thompson, George
S. Long.
Mississippi: Thomas G. Abernathy, Jamie L. Whitten, Frank E. Smith, John
Bell Williams, Arthur Winstead, William M. Colmer.
North Carolina: Herbert C. Bonner, L.H. Fountain, Graham A. Barden,
Carl T. Durham, F. Ertel Carlyle, Hugh Q. Alexander, Woodrow W. Jones,
George A. Shuford.
South Carolina: L. Mendel Rivers, John J. Riley, W.J. Bryan Dorn, Robert
T. Ashmore, James P. Richards, John L. McMillan.
Tennessee: James B. Frazier, Jr., Tom Murray, Jere Cooper, Clifford Davis.

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education of their own children.

Phil M. Landrum, Paul Brown.

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