Congress, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Massive Resistance and the Government Shutdown

 By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger 

“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. 

-The Southern Manifesto,  Cong. Rec., 84th Cong. 2d Session, Vol. 102, part 4 (March 12, 1956)

‘This was an activist court that you saw today.  Anytime the Supreme Court renders something constitutional that is clearly unconstitutional, that undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court.  I do believe the court’s credibility was undermined severely today.” 

-Michele Bachmann (R. Minn.),  June 26 2012

Most people are familiar with the opinion in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, et al., 349 U.S. 483 (1954), in which a unanimous Supreme Court summarily outlawed public school segregation by tersely declaring, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” 349 U.S. at 495.  But many people do not know that Brown involved a consolidation of cases from four states.  The “et al.” in the style refers to decisions on similar facts in Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia.  And the response of Virginia to the ruling in Brown provides an interesting comparison with the actions leading to the current government shutdown.

In 1951 the population of Prince Edward County, Virginia was approximately 15,000, more than half of whom were African-American.  The county maintained two high schools to accommodate 386 black students and 346 white students.  Robert R. Moton High School lacked adequate science facilities and offered a more restricted curriculum than the high school reserved for white students.  It had no gym, showers or dressing rooms, no cafeteria and no restrooms for teachers.  Students at Moton High were even required to ride in older school buses.

Suit was filed in federal district court challenging the Virginia constitutional and statutory provisions mandating segregated public schools.  Although the trial court agreed that the school board had failed to provide a substantially equal education for African-American students, it declined to invalidate the Virginia laws, concluding that segregation was not based “upon prejudice, on caprice, nor upon any other measureless foundation,” but reflected “ways of life in Virginia” which “has for generations been a part of the mores of the people.”  Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, 103 F. Supp. 337, 339 (E.D. Va. 1952).  Instead, the court ordered the school board to proceed with the completion of existing plans to upgrade the curriculum, physical plant and buses at Moton High School.  When the plaintiffs took an appeal from the decision, the Democratic machine that had for many years controlled Virginia politics under the firm hand of Sen. Harry Byrd had little reason to believe that “ways of life” that had prevailed since the end of the Reconstruction era would soon be declared illegal.

When the Brown decision was announced, the reaction in Virginia was shock, disbelief and anger. Reflecting the prevailing attitudes, the Richmond News Leader railed against “the encroachment of the Federal government, through judicial legislation, upon the reserved powers of the States.”  The Virginia legislature adopted a resolution of “interposition” asserting its right to “interpose” between unconstitutional federal mandates and local authorities under principles of state sovereignty.  And Sen. Byrd organized a campaign of opposition that came to be known as “Massive Resistance.”

In August of 1954 a commission was appointed to formulate a plan to preserve segregated schools.  Late in 1955, it presented its recommendations, including eliminating mandatory school attendance, empowering local school boards to assign students to schools and creating special tuition grants to enable white students to attend private schools.  Enabling legislation was quickly adopted and “segregation academies” began forming around the state.  Subsequent legislation went even further by prohibiting state funding of schools that chose to integrate.

In March of 1956, 19 senators and 77 house members from 11 southern states signed what is popularly known as “The Southern Manifesto,” in which they declared, “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.”

Throughout this period the Prince Edward County schools remained segregated, but when various court rulings invalidated Virginia’s various attempts to avoid integration, the school board took its final stand.  It refused to authorize funds to operate any schools in the district, and all public schools in the county were simply closed, and remained closed from 1959 to 1964.

There are striking similarities between Sen. Byrd’s failed plan of Massive Resistance and Republican efforts to prevent implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  There was widespread confidence among conservatives that the Supreme Court would declare the Act unconstitutional.  When that did not occur, legislators such as Michele Bachmann, quoted above, attempted to deny the legitimacy of the Court’s ruling.  Brent Bozell went further, denouncing Chief Justice Roberts as “a traitor to his own philosophy,” hearkening back to the days when southern roadsides were replete with billboards demanding the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren.

The House of Representatives has taken over 40 votes to repeal the ACA, quixotic efforts pursued for reasons known only to John Boehner and his colleagues.  And in accordance with the Virginia legislative model, the House has attempted to starve the ACA by eliminating it from funding bills.  Following the failure of these efforts, Republicans have elected to pursue the path ultimately taken by the school board of Prince Edward County and have shut down the government.

Even the strategy followed by Republicans is largely a southern effort.  Approximately 60% of the Tea Party Caucus is from the South.  Nineteen of the 32 Republican members of the House who have been instrumental in orchestrating the shutdown are from southern states. It is hardly surprising therefore, that the current impasse is characterized by the time-honored southern belief in nullification theory as a proper antidote to disfavored decisions by a congressional majority.

In reflecting upon the experience of Virginia many years later, former Gov. Linwood Holton noted, “Massive resistance … served mostly to exacerbate emotions arrayed in a lost cause.”  Republicans would do well to ponder the wisdom in that observation.

1,677 thoughts on “Massive Resistance and the Government Shutdown”

  2. OS,

    There’s news that they own a lot in the Chicago along the river, where the Koch’s are storing open piles of toxic soil, a waste product of the refining process. They are as free to let the dust blow into the surrounding neighborhoods as the residents there are free to move or not, it’s up to them to decide.

  3. Well Mike, David has a point. Rockefeller and Pullman were free abuse to murder, abuse, and torment their workers, were they not? BTW, I think they prefer to use term “eliminate”. “Murder” sounds so unchristian.

    Speaking of Pullman, I read a fascinating biography of Clarence Darrow, who as a corporate attorney for the Chicago Northwestern Railroad, visited the Pullman manufactories during a strike and witnessed men tying themselves to their equipment to keep from collapsing due to starvation. It was one of the recurrent financial panics and Pullman reduced wages but not rent or prices in the company store. As he started curtailing credit, if you couldn’t afford his prices, you didn’t eat. You see, in return for the privilege of employment, Pullman was free to require his workers to purchase their food exclusively at his stores; anyone caught with a loaf of “contraband” bread was terminated and evicted immediately upon discovery. Ah, freedom. It’s a wonderful thing

    1. “I read a fascinating biography of Clarence Darrow, who as a corporate attorney for the Chicago Northwestern Railroad, visited the Pullman manufactories during a strike and witnessed men tying themselves to their equipment to keep from collapsing due to starvation.”

      RTC,

      We probably read the same biography. Darrow is one of my few heroes and it was an early interest in him. Seeing the movie “Compulsion” in 1959 about the Leopold/Loeb trial where Darrow was played by Orson Welles and then in 1960 seeing “Inherit The Wind” where he was played by Spencer Tracey, made me interested in the real man. I then read Irving Stone’s biography “Clarence Darrow for the Defense” and have been hooked ever since.

      DavidM’s nostalgic glorification of the 1800’s capitalism in this country is either his complete misunderstanding of the history, or perhaps that he understands the history and believes that’s the way things should be. It is also either an unfamiliarity with the history of the Labor Movement and why it was formed, or a belief that workers should be treated as serfs, that causes such enmity towards unions today.

  4. DavidM: I did read what you wrote, you said “a parking lot.” A “parking lot” is not a “driveway” or “garage” or “carport” or “yard.” A parking lot is a place for multiple people to park, and in common parlance such people are not the owners of the place they are parking: they are employees or customers of the place, or business people performing a service or making sales, or public officials on official duty. Because of that, they may be unknown and unselectable by the establishment, and occasionally handicapped.

    If it is impossible for anybody but YOU to park there, I wonder what possessed you to build a parking lot: Perhaps you just enjoy the aesthetics of blacktop with dramatic white accents. But if you are not just lying to cover up your bigotry, go to court and sue. It is your civic duty as a citizen to use legal means to ensure local government bullies do not overstep their bounds. The system is imperfect, we all have to chip in to keep it on course, one small step at a time.

    I will reiterate, however, that complying with regulations is NOT a reduction of ownership, “ownership” does not imply the right to break the law or harm others using your property; it never has.

    “Ownership” does not trump the law, it only gives you the right to use your property within the law. That has always been philosophically true; if ownership rights superseded the law then we would just once again have anarchy: I could ignore all traffic laws on the grounds that I own my car and can do with it as I please, you could ignore all laws against murder and mayhem because you own your guns and can do with them as you please, Bron’s farmers could secretly use carcinogenic pesticides on their crops, and sell their tainted grain to flour mills, and cause one in two hundred of the children eating their grain to die horrific deaths, all under the cover of ownership: Their farm, their crop, they can do what they want with it and don’t have to tell nobody nothing.

    Your premise that regulation reduces “ownership” is based on a flawed premise, the law supersedes ownership and always will.

    1. Tony C wrote: “Your premise that regulation reduces “ownership” is based on a flawed premise, the law supersedes ownership and always will.”

      No flawed premise. You just are not understanding. I speak from a philosophical perspective of what ownership is.

      Ownership is the act of having and controlling property. Full ownership would mean you have full control. Regulations reduce ownership. The more laws that hinder your ability to do what you want with your property, the less ownership you have. In a communist society, ownership is taken away. You receive permission to use property for the intended purposes specified by the government. In our free enterprise system, we deed property to people, giving them ownership, and then we establish regulations that limit what they are or are not allowed to do with that property. The more regulations, the less ownership you actually have. Technically, you might have a deed to the property, but under heavy regulation, it is possible that someone in a communist nation who does not own his property might actually have more control of his property than that person who supposedly owns his property.

      Stop paying property taxes, and your property is taken away. How much different is this than if you don’t pay your rent, you have to move out?

    2. Tony C wrote: “If it is impossible for anybody but YOU to park there, I wonder what possessed you to build a parking lot.”

      You still are not following the facts and understanding. What I said was that there is not one person to ever use that spot. That includes me. I am blocked from using that area of my property.

      Imagine you do consulting out of your home, and you become so successful that you cannot handle all the people who call in and want you to work for them. So you decide to hire someone to help you. You want them to answer calls, file papers, and schedule meetings so your time can be freed up to do the consulting work. Assume also you live in an area where zoning laws allow you to do work out of your home, so instead of renting or buying an office building, you decide to have your new employee come work at your house. Now imagine your employee has to park in the grass, and he or she is always tracking in leaves and dirt, mud when it rains, etc. So you think it might be good to expand the width of your driveway near the road in front of your house to allow a few cars to park. Might be nice for the occasional party you have. So the government requires you to buy a permit to start construction, and they inform you that you can’t just add room for one space, but you must widen it much more and add a handicap space. So you go through all the expense of doing that, and now you have a handicap space in front of your house along with one regular space for parking. The problem is that nobody in your home is disabled, and neither is your employee. Now eventually you want to hire another person, but nobody can park in this handicap space. It is not used by anybody because you are not open to the public and you yourself are not allowed to park in it. You will have to expand the parking lot even wider for your new employee. I guess that all makes sense to you, but not to me. It is your property, you paid for it, and you should be able to use it.

      So now you follow your suggestion: go to court and sue. Takes time, takes more money… Can you not see how such regulations hinder business from growing and hiring people? Magnify situations like this ten fold and you will start to get an idea of what small business people go through. Many businesses are shut down by unnecessary government regulations, jobs are lost, then the liberals complain about there not being enough jobs.

      We need some regulations for harmony and order, but there comes a point where regulations are oppressive and burdensome. We have reached this point in this country because the legislatures have too much money and too much time on their hands. They just keep dreaming up new laws. I am waiting for one person to run for office who instead of heralding all the laws he is going to create instead says he is going to repeal every law that is unnecessary and burdensome. Everyone complains about how there are not enough jobs, but they don’t do anything about the thing that is robbing us of jobs. Government regulations and red tape. That is the primary job killer in this country.

      Following is a program by John Stossel which aired on Fox News channel. In it you will see young girls whose lemonade stand was ordered shut down by the police, and a man who imported lobster tails for many years. He was sentenced to 8 years and 1 month in prison. He served 6 years in prison. Stossel also explains what is involved to open a lemonade stand legally in New York City. He also explains the problem of lobbyists who cause these bad laws to be made. The program is a bit long, but if you watch some of it, maybe you might understand what I am trying to say about the oppression of too many regulations.

      http://youtu.be/nBiJB8YuDBQ

      1. Good explanation David. As you said, multiply it by 10 and you see the difficulties. But it even worse than that. There are approx. 120 different taxes and regulatory fees stifling all levels of business and society. We have experienced years of business flight. Approx. 41,000 factories closed down just in the last 12 years. Do people think theses companies are leaving due to a great business environment?

  6. OS,

    It’s late, pain meds…

    Your link… 14 billion readers, what? 🙂

    I guess they broadcast to another planet also, as last I heard there were only 7 billion lost souls on this piece of dirt.

    It was good for a laugh anyway. LOL

    ** Congratulations, tea party members: You are just as vulnerable to politically biased misinterpretation of science as everyone else! Is fixing this threat to our Republic part of your program?
    AuthorDan Kahan Posted on DateSaturday, October 19, 2013 at 6:28PM

    A recurring irony in the empirical study of politically biased misunderstandings of science is how often people misconstrue empirical evidence of this very phenomenon as a result of politically biased reasoning.

    It’s funny.

    It’s painful.

    And it’s depressing—indeed, the 50th time you see it, it is mainly just depressing

    So I wasn’t “surprised”—much less “stunned”—when I observed descriptions of the data I presented on the correlation between science comprehension and identification with the tea party being warped by this same dynamic.

    The 14 billion regular readers of this blog (exactly 2,503,232 of whom identity with the tea party) know that I believe that there is no convincing empirical evidence that the science communication problem—the failure of compelling, widely accessible scientific evidence to dispel culturally fractious disputes over societal risks and other policy-relevant facts—can be attributed to any supposed correlation between a “conservative” political outlook & a deficit in science literacy, critical reasoning skills, or commitment to science’s signature methods for discovery of truth. **

  7. OS,

    Aside from the oil the Kochs “Stole” from the Osage & other royalty owners around here that GW covered up in his 1st days in office/destroying BIA records/etc…

    Koch bros own a refinery in Houston that has to have heavy nasty crude oil.

    Venezuela cut them off from the oil they needed.

    So they went to the nastiest oil there has ever been on the planet, Canadian tar sands.

    Even big name Republicans I know don’t want Tar sands oil as it Phk’s up the environment to much.

  8. Some time back, Koch Industries and the Koch brothers denied having any financial interest in the Keystone pipline project. It came to light today that they own a LOT of properties that are cash cows. They stand to make at least $100 Billion dollars from the Keystone pipeline. And that “B” is not a typo.

    I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that they would lie about not making money on the project. You can afford to buy a lot of politicians and judges with that kind of slush fund.

  12. Skippyyyyyy,

    Foul tip. I was waiting for you call Appeal to Authority fallacy! If you want to point fallacies here, you have to link them to a statement. You can’t just call out random fallacies and hope one of them are right. That’s weak. But listen, what was Alexander Hamilton wrong about? How, exactly, has he been proven wrong? And, who supplied the proof? If you say Milton Friedman… well, I’ll let you answer that first.

    As for allowing agricultural prices to plummet…are you kidding me? Even a cursory reading of history would tell you what happened in the early 1900’s, when prices were too low to support farmers. Farmers are not a portion of the community you want piss off. They’re not like your downtrodden lower classes that will stand for all the exploitative abuse you can heap up. They get downright snarly. They dump perfectly good food down the drain. Hey, they might be crying hardship in South Dakota as a result of snowstorm, but they’ll be crying all the way to the bank when prices spike because of the shortage in beef. Just like oil. So yes, food can be too cheap for own good, skippy, because I don’t know about you, but I can only eat so much before I’m full. That’s why food stamps are a win-win. They help support prices to keep the farmers farming, and they help feed the poor, which keeps them from doing desperate things. I feel like I’m talking to a wall for some reason.

    And, to answer your question, feeding the poor and housing the homeless. all those people you cite as examples of govt’s failure to address the problems of the needy? Where are the private business concerns to help them. If private business is so willing to help the truly needy, there’s no reason to wait til govt is out of the way. Let ’em get started right now. There’s plenty of deserving needy, no waiting.

  13. Bron one more time!

    Besides a drug addict and insane, I don’t what Ayn Rand was. I tried reading “Atlas Shrugged”, and it made me physically ill.

    I do know that she wrote an article lauding the acts of a psychokiller – although she made a point of saying his acts were despicable – but they demonstrated the acts of someone who took control and used the world for his own pleasure, sick, twisted and disgusting as it was, yet that, she said, was the whole point of life. That to me was Ayn Rand. Not someone you’d want to be trapped in an elevator with. She’d drink your blood.

  14. David,

    Book it. You are right ( and I don’t just politically). I was wrong. You’re policies would not make this country like China IN EVERY RESPECT (dam, I gotta learn how to italicize with wordpress). China raised it’s minimum wage a year ago, something you guys would never do. You think the working class should be glad to take what it can get. China, on the hand, realized the best way to stimulate spending within it’s own borders was to put more money into the hands of those at the lower end of the economic ladder. Cynics might say that leadership saw it as an effective way of staving off a revolt. Tomato, tomahto.

    But, from a standpoint of civil rights, including eavesdroping, and environmental protection, and social initiatives, like compensation for workplace injury and old age pensions, yeh that’s where you’d take us. And don’t kid yourself, this country determines occupations for it’s citizens, oftentimes by treating the educational system as a vocational program.

    OH! and I love THIS from you….

    “I posted previously in this thread a link to a community in Hawaii that could not wait for the government to put in a bridge, so the community pitched in and did it without the government.”

    WHAT DO YOU THINK GOVT IS, DAVID! Don’t answer that because I know what YOU think it is, but I’m going to tell what it really is. Government is a community coming together to carry out a communal need, in this case a bridge. Another term for a bridge is infrastructure, something you and skippy seem to take for granted. I’ll grant that there must be several examples of govt action that meet with your approval. But you exhibit a certain narrow-mindedness that causes you to disapprove of govt aid to many people whose lifestyles and behavior you don’t agree with. Govt is the cushioning agent such severely judgmental positions. Your “magic button” would leave the needs of the wider American community hanging.

    1. RTC wrote: “OH! and I love THIS from you….

      “I posted previously in this thread a link to a community in Hawaii that could not wait for the government to put in a bridge, so the community pitched in and did it without the government.”

      WHAT DO YOU THINK GOVT IS, DAVID! Don’t answer that because I know what YOU think it is, but I’m going to tell what it really is. Government is a community coming together to carry out a communal need, in this case a bridge.”

      RTC – Really? The difference is government takes money by force. If you don’t pay, they put you in prison. And they spend your money for immoral and for wasteful things… in ways that you would never spend your own money. In this case of the community building the bridge, it is VOLUNTARY. The community pitched in for something they all wanted VOLUNTARILY. In this particular case, the government was so disorganized and financially irresponsible and so wrapped up in bureaucracy and regulations that they could not build something the community really needed… a bridge. So the people did it themselves without government. A lot of things can be done without government, especially without FEDERAL government.

      Previously you mentioned medical help for people who can’t afford it. I don’t know how it is done in your part of the country, but here our county taxes pay for all these people who can’t pay just fine. They all get help, whether they can afford it or not. We do not need to federalize it. Now that it is being federalized, we won’t be able to afford it. Your goal of providing healthcare for everyone will be lost. People who crunch the numbers know this, but people who live in a fantasy world like President Obama sell the dream and do not know how to make it happen in the real world. The result will be financial collapse.

  15. I win and lose @ the casino. I NEVER lose @ the Baraboo Candy Co. Lots of free samples. A great small biz. The backbone and central nervous system of this country. Only folks who have operated a small biz can truly understand that.

  16. I believe there is a need for both unemployment and worker’s comp insurance. However, both can create a disincentive to return to work. They are not ALL good. Only chocolate is ALL good. I could use some right now. I buy this sponge cake covered w/ dark chocolate made by the Baraboo Candy Co. They make Cow Pies, sold nationwide. It’s a small biz I support when ever I go to the Indian casino across the street in Baraboo, Wi.

  17. Employers pay into unemployment insurance, not employees. Employers pay worker’s comp insurance, not employees. Tax money is sometimes allocated to subsidize additional money needed for unemployment, but the bulk is paid by employers.

  18. Bron,

    The examples I gave are not really extreme. People are brought to emergency rooms every day in every state unable to communicate, and prove their ability to pay for treatment. I offer them to people who don’t believe there’s any moral obligation on the part of society to pay for live saving medical care for poor and uninsured people. Should you or someone you care about end up unable to communicate you’ll want treatment to commence immediately. The result of this policy is that the govt covers the costs for any of these cases that can’t be recovered from the patients. Or their estates. Obamacare will reduce the amounts that the govt, which is you and me, are obligated to cover.

    I never said all poor people are mentally ill, but many mentally ill people are poor. You want to put them to work in demeaning jobs. If this were Japan, where the person who sweeps the factory enjoys a high rate of pay befitting his seniority and is treated with dignity, it would be different. But in the American society you and DavidM and Skippyrob seem so enthused about, workers occupying these positions are considered expendable and temporary. And, considering the cruel nature peolple often exhibit, do you think it’s advisable to put a broom in the hands of someone with Down’s syndrome and tell him to go sweep up around downtown. What do you tell them. Good luck?

    BTW, unemployment insurance is not welfare, it’s insurance that we pay into. The repub brain washing has succeeded in convincing you that it’s a handout. It isn’t, it’s insurance. (underline insurance, dam I gotta learn how to work this wordpress!) It’s supposed to tide people over for a limited period of time until they find a new job. The right-wing hates it because it removes the element of desperation from the workforce. And panic is what they thrive on.

    Oy, living things occupy niches, meaning they perform functions. That’s different from “work” in the sense you’re using it. I’ve known people with severe Down’s syndrome who couldn’t perform the simplest task you could dream up, yet as a result of their condition, that person brought a group of neighbors together in a bond that lasted forty years. Not work in your sense of the word, but a function, nonetheless. I was a kid back then, unable and unprepared to provide support for the guy when his mother died thirty years ago. But I was relieved the govt provided support for the guy and i have realized the good value that my taxes, combined with some of your taxes, have helped achieved.

    You know, Bron, your thing about squirrels and whatnot…I don’t know. The more I read your posts, the younger you seem to me. I can tell your not a bad guy, I get that from your writing. But somewhere along the way you got some bad indoctrination. Or you haven’t experienced everything life can throw at you, like loss and tragedy. Do yourself a favor and expand your reading, because I can tell you’ve read things. Expand. Read about the Populist movement, read StudsTerkel. Read. And good luck.

  19. I’ll read the study tomorrow. I don’t do well in the evening. Just lightweight stuff like this blog.

  20. Have you?? I read some of his website and saw he also did some work on people who fear vaccines. I also Googled the reaction to the Tea Party/Science reaction. You are correct, right wing media has jumped all over it. But the red flag is the left wing media[there are both scientist OS] is strangely silent. Elaine should come up w/ something. I found a Mother Jones piece but that was done on believers and non believers of global warming. What’s your take on this Yale law prof’s study?

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