Southern Manifesto

The "Southern Manifesto" was a document written in February-March 1956 by legislators in the United States Congress opposed to racial integration in public places.cite journal |last=Badger |first=Tony |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1999 |month=June |title=Southerners Who Refused to Sign the Southern Manifesto |journal= The Historical Journal |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=517–534 |id= |url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-246X%28199906%2942%3A2%3C517%3ASWRTST%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W |accessdate= 2007-08-10 |quote= |doi=10.1017/S0018246X98008346 ] The manifesto was signed by 99 Democrats and 2 Republicans (101 politicians) from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The document was largely drawn up to counter the landmark Supreme Court 1954 ruling "Brown v. Board of Education", which integrated public schools. The initial version was written by Strom Thurmond and the final version mainly by Richard Russell.cite journal| date = March 26 1956 | title = The Southern Manifesto | journal = Time Magazine | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,824106,00.html | accessdate = 2007-08-10 ] The manifesto was signed by 19 Senators and 81 members of the House of Representatives, including the entire congressional delegations of the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. All of the signatories were Southern Democrats but two: Republicans Joel Broyhill and Richard Poff of Virginia. School segregation laws were some of the most enduring and best-known of the Jim Crow laws that characterized the American South and several northern states at the time.

The Southern Manifesto accused the Supreme Court of "clear abuse of judicial power." It further promised 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." [ Grand Expectations The United States, 1945-1974 (1996) page 398 ]

Key Quotes

"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 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 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."

ignatories and Non-Signatories

In many southern States, signing was much more common than not signing. Those from southern States who refused to sign are noted below. Refusal to sign occurred most prominently among the Texan and Tennessee delegations, where the majority of members of the United States House of Representatives refused to sign.

United States Senate

* John Sparkman (D-Alabama)
* Lister Hill (D-Alabama)
* William Fulbright (D-Arkansas)
* John L. McClellan (D-Arkansas)
* George A. Smathers (D-Florida)
* Spessard Holland (D-Florida)
* Walter F. George (D-Georgia)
* Richard B. Russell (D-Georgia)
* Allen J. Ellender (D-Louisiana)
* Russell B. Long (D-Louisiana)
* James O. Eastland (D-Mississippi)
* John Stennis (D-Mississippi)
* Samuel Ervin (D-North Carolina)
* W. Kerr Scott (D-North Carolina)
* Strom Thurmond (D-South Carolina)
* Olin D. Johnston (D-South Carolina)
* Price Daniel (D-Texas)
* Harry F. Byrd (D-Virginia)
* A. Willis Robertson (D-Virginia)

Non-Signatories:

*Albert Gore, Sr. (D-Tennessee)
*Estes Kefauver (D-Tennessee)
*Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas) (Senate Majority Leader at the time, Johnson was not asked to sign the document.)

United States House of Representatives

Alabama:

* George W. Andrews (D)
* Frank W. Boykin (D)
* Carl Elliott (D)
* George M. Grant (D)
* George Huddleston, Jr. (D)
* Robert E. Jones (D)
* Albert Rains (D)
* Kenneth A. Roberts (D)
* Armistead Selden (D)

Arkansas:

* E.C. Gathings (D)
* Oren Harris (D)
* Brooks Hays (D)
* Wilbur D. Mills (D)
* W.F. Norrell (D)
* James William Trimble (D)

Florida:

* Charles Edward Bennett (D)
* James A. Haley (D)
* Albert Herlong, Jr. (D)
* D.R. "Billy" Matthews (D)
* Paul G. Rogers (D)
* Robert L. F. Sikes (D)

Non-Signatories:

* Dante Fascell (D)
* William Cramer (R)

Georgia:

* Iris F. Blitch (D)
* Paul Brown (D)
* James C. Davis (D)
* John James Flynt, Jr. (D)
* E.L. Forrester (D)
* Phil M. Landrum (D)
* Henderson Lanham (D)
* John L. Pilcher (D)
* Prince H. Preston (D)
* Carl Vinson (D)

Louisiana:

* Hale Boggs (D)
* Overton Brooks (D)
* F. Edward Hebert (D)
* George S. Long (D)
* James H. Morrison (D)
* Otto E. Passman (D)
* T. Ashton Thompson (D)
* Edwin E. Willis (D)

Mississippi:

* Thomas G. Abernethy (D)
* William M. Colmer (D)
* Frank E. Smith (D)
* Jamie L. Whitten (D)
* John Bell Williams (D)
* Arthur Winstead (D)

North Carolina:

* Hugh Q. Alexander (D)
* Graham A. Barden (D)
* Herbert C. Bonner (D)
* Frank Carlyle (D)
* Carl Durham (D)
* Lawrence Fountain (D)
* Woodrow W. Jones (D)
* George A. Shuford (D)

Non-Signatories:

* Richard Chatham (D)
* Harold Cooley (D)
* Charles Deane (D)
* Charles Jonas (R)

South Carolina:

* Robert T. Ashmore (D)
* W.J. Bryan Dorn (D)
* John L. McMillan (D)
* James P. Richards (D)
* John J. Riley (D)
* L. Mendel Rivers (D)

Tennessee:

* Jere Cooper (D)
* Clifford Davis (D)
* James B. Frazier, Jr. (D)
* Tom Murray (D)

Non-Signatories:

* Howard Baker, Sr. (R)
* Ross Bass (D)
* Joe Evins (D)
* Percy Priest (D)
* B. Carroll Reece (R)

Texas:
* Wright Patman (D)
* John Dowdy (D)
* Walter Rogers (D)
* O. C. Fisher (D)
* Martin Dies, Jr. (D)

Non-Signatories:

* Jack Brooks (D)
* Brady Gentry (D)
* Sam Rayburn (D)
* Bruce Alger (R)
* Olin E. Teague (D)
* Albert Thomas (D)
* Clark W. Thompson (D)
* Homer Thornberry (D)
* William Poage (D)
* Jim Wright (D)
* Frank Ikard (D)
* John J. Bell (D)
* Joe Madison Kilgore (D)
* J. T. Rutherford (D)
* Omar Burleson (D)
* George Mahon (D)
* Paul Kilday (D)

Virginia:
* Edward J. Robeson, Jr. (D)
* Porter Hardy (D)
* J. Vaughan Gary (D)
* Watkins M. Abbitt (D)
* William M. Tuck (D)
* Richard Harding Poff (R)
* Burr Harrison (D)
* Howard W. Smith (D)
* W. Pat Jennings (D)
* Joel T. Broyhill (R)

References

ee also

* American Civil Rights Movement
* Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
* Brown vs. Board of Education
* 1957 Georgia Memorial to Congress

External links

* [http://www.strom.clemson.edu/strom/manifesto.html Manifesto text and signers from the Congressional Record]