The Dixiecrats - Would We Have Been Better Off Had Thurmond Won in 1948?

The New York Times this morning carried a report which, if true, is just about the best political news of the year. Indeed, it may be the most significant development since the advent of the New Deal.

Although a New Yorker born and bred, I was a staunch supporter of the Thurmond movement; a good friend of mine headed the Columbia Students for Thurmond, which I believe was the only such collegiate movement north of the Mason-Dixon line.

My support, however, was not extremely enthusiastic, because, although I agreed wholeheartedly with the platform and Thurmond’s campaign speeches, I felt that it was keyed too much to purely Southern interests. Sure, the Civil Tyranny program must be combatted, but what about the myriad invasions of states rights in other fields by the power-hungry Washington bureaucracy? In other words, while you always claimed that yours was a national movement, by talking only of the Civil Tyranny program you threw away any attraction to Northern and Western voters.

I have always felt that it is imperative for the States Rights movement to establish itself on a nation-wide scale. Obviously, we are now living in a one-party system, a party of Socialists in fact if not in name, and only courageous Southern Democrats in Congress have so far blocked their program. But as far as Presidential elections go, the Republicans are through – the Socialist Administration has too much power to bribe voters with wild promises. If things go on as they are, it is only a question of a few years for the socialist program to go through and destroy this land of liberty.

Therefore it is essential to form a new party, of States Righters, consisting of Southern Democrats and real Republicans (omitting the me-too Republicans) to launch a dynamic offensive against National Socialism in this country before it is too late. I am greatly elated over your new platform because I believe it points in that direction.

Would you please send me a copy of your new platform and constitution? Do you plan to start a newspaper of nation-wide circulation? This would be of great help in establishing a national States Rights movement.

I would like to add that, as an economist, I enthusiastically support your proposals on national debt and taxes – in fact, taken all and all, from the news reports I would say that your new platform is one of the best in American history. Indeed, it is one of the finest political statements in America since Calhoun’s Exposition.

It could grow into a mighty movement if you have the will and vision. There are millions of Americans throughout the country, Republicans and Democrats, who would flock to your banner. They are weary of being led by the nose by New Deal politicians of both parties – they are tired of being deprived of their votes because there is no anti-socialist and pro-liberty party to which they can turn.

You, gentlemen, can be a means of succor for these millions - and not only these, but America itself. National Socialism has always meant poverty, tyranny, and war. America is slipping down the road and has already gone far; it must be restored to the right path if the great dream of our forefathers of a nation dedicated to liberty is not to vanish from the earth. Yours can be that mission.

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), the founder of modern libertarianism and the dean of the Austrian School of economics, was the author of The Ethics of Liberty and For a New Liberty and many other books and articles. He was also academic vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and the Center for Libertarian Studies, and the editor – with Lew Rockwell – of The Rothbard-Rockwell Report.

In the 1780s, northern New Jersey and southeastern New York had slave populations as high as much of the South outside the Tidewater plantation areas.

According to the 1790 census, New York and New Jersey had a combined slave population of about 32,500. Virginia had almost 300,000. North and South Carolina had over 100,000 each, as did Maryland. Georgia had 29,000, over 10 times as many as all the New England states combined. Over three quarters of all slaves lived in one quarter of the states. There was no universal opposition to slavery, but opposition in the Northern states was starting to spread.

To: tpaine

Hah! That's rich. "Personal attacks and insults" are your first and last names and inflicting pain is your game. Abuse reports from people with unclean hands are not taken seriously. If you want to be taken seriously on this forum you might think about cleaning up your act.

257 posted on 7/28/02 4:10 PM Pacific by Jim Robinson

Wallace T:
"These acts extended Federal authority into private matters, such as the sale of housing, the rental or sale of real property, and the operation of common carriers such as bus lines. If one adheres to the original intent of the Framers, these acts were not
justified under the Constitution.
-WT_

I agree. Federal action seldom stops where it should - therefore, the states would have been better off reforming themselves rather than creating a situation where the feds were justified in acting. As a result, we are ALL paying for it now."
-DB-

Yes, we are all paying DB. - Which, -- from my view, -- was probably more or less Lotts initial point, and is certainly Wallace T's.
The constitutionalists 'gave up' in '48, then were buried with Goldwater in '64.

Almost all the slaves in New York and New Jersey were concentrated in what is now the New York metro area, which was, of course, mostly farm land in the late 1700s. Blacks, mostly slaves, were over 20% of the population of Kings County, NY (modern Brooklyn). A majority of farmers in Kings County were slaveholders, as was the case in nearby Queens County. Slaveholding percentages were also high in counties like Westchester in New York and Bergen and Passaic in New Jersey.

If you look at where the slaves were located in the states from Maryland to Georgia, you will notice that they resided mostly in the tidewater areas, where tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar cane, and indigo were the major crops. Above the fall line and especially in the Scotch-Irish and German settled areas, like the Shenandoah Valley, slavery, though legal, was uncommon.

Yes, we are all paying DB. - Which, -- from my view, -- was probably more or less Lotts initial point, and is certainly Wallace T's.

The problem is, you cannot maintain a federalist republic where the member states are allowed to use their own respective powers to deny federally-mandated rights to some of their citizens. That, simply, is untenable and intolerable. So the Dixiecrats brought this upon themselves, and eventually upon the rest of us as well. Had they decided to do the right thing on their own, the feds would have been unable to muster the sympathies of the larger populace to justify large-scale federal action.

To: tpaine

257 posted on 7/28/02 4:10 PM Pacific by Jim Robinson

"The problem is, you cannot maintain a federalist republic where the member states are allowed to use their own respective powers to deny federally-mandated rights to some of their citizens." -DB-

I have no argument with that position. But it is equaly important, imo, that states retain the political will & power to fight federal violations of the constitution.
-- In effect, they, the states, have 'sold out' to the powers that be, the socialist wings of both parties.
This, to me, is the real 'problem', and in his own stupid way, is what Lott was trying to say about '48.

The ACLU has done plenty of damage to the body politic, for example, their relentless drive to purge any and all items even remotedly tied to the Christian faith from the public arena. This particular drive of said group is based on their extreme interpretation of the 1st Amendment's provision prohibiting Congress from establishing a national religion. The original intent of the Amendment was to prevent the meddling of the state in religious matters and the church in state matters, a source of much grief in the Middle Ages and Reformation era. How does putting a nativity scene on the court house square establish the Roman Catholic Church or the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod? The ACLU's extremist interpretation of the freedom of speech clause in the same amendment to incorporate protection of the vilest pornography has handicapped the ability of local governments to maintain a decent atmosphere in American cities and towns. The First Amendment was intended to cover freedom of political speech; pornography is not political speech.

Yet you regard the ACLU as more honorable than the Ku Klux Klan? The former may be more respectable in polite society, but are just as despicable as the latter, albeit in a different way.

Conservatives will win nothing if we live in fear of being ostracized by liberals. We should not strive to be PC-lite, but offer a true alternative to the Left.

Yet you regard the ACLU as more honorable than the Ku Klux Klan? The former may be more respectable in polite society, but are just as despicable as the latter, albeit in a different way.

Yes, I do see the ACLU as being more honorable (although that can reasonably construed as damning with faint praise). The ACLU has never lynched anyone, firebombed homes or whipped men. It's ludicrous to try and equate the two, either politically or in any other fashion.

I have no argument with that position. But it is equaly important, imo, that states retain the political will & power to fight federal violations of the constitution.

I think we can both agree that matters today would have been much better if the states in question had, on their own, resolved forced segration and brought their laws into line with the Constitution, rather than resisting that reform until the feds rammed it down their throats, along with other changes that exceeded the mandate to enforce equal protection.

To: tpaine

257 posted on 7/28/02 4:10 PM Pacific by Jim Robinson

I have no argument with that position. But it is equaly important, imo, that states retain the political will & power to fight federal violations of the constitution.
-- In effect, they, the states, have 'sold out' to the powers that be, the socialist wings of both parties.
This, to me, is the real 'problem', and in his own stupid way, is what Lott was trying to say about '48.
68 -tpaine-

I think we can both agree that matters today would have been much better if the states in question had, on their own, resolved forced segration and brought their laws into line with the Constitution, rather than resisting that reform until the feds rammed it down their throats, along with other changes that exceeded the mandate to enforce equal protection.
72 -DB-

So 'Cat', -- getting back to the threads topic, -- can you agree with our points above? -- Or are you just bound on insisting that this thread is all about:

"Ah, yes. Let's talk about couching a yearn for segregation, Jim Crow laws & keepin' dem n--gras in their place in hifalutin' words." -catspaw-

The Dixiecrats split from Truman's Democrats because of the proposed civil rights legislation he favored, as well as their increasing discomfort at the expansion of Federal power that had occurred since 1933. To say the Dixiecrats' split was all based on racial matters is absurd. The civil rights movement was yet to be born. We were eight years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the Montgomery bus and six years before Brown vs. Topeka. Civil rights legislation may have been partially on their minds, but there were other matters.

Remember that as early as 1938, conservative Southern Democrats were expressing their dissatisfaction at Franklin Roosevelt by opposing his "court packing" schemes. Increasingly during the 1940s, the conservative Southerners were beginning to find common cause with Republicans.

The Dixiecrat movement was, like George Wallace's American Party 20 years later, a halfway house between the white South out of its century long alliance with the Democrats and into the GOP. That there is now a two party South is in part due to the migration of conservative Democrats away from the party of Jefferson and Jackson to that of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

To: tpaine

Hah! That's rich. "Personal attacks and insults" are your first and last names and inflicting pain is your game. Abuse reports from people with unclean hands are not taken seriously. If you want to be taken seriously on this forum you might think about cleaning up your act. 257 posted on 7/28/02 4:10 PM Pacific by Jim Robinson

I have no argument with that position. But it is equaly important, imo, that states retain the political will & power to fight federal violations of the constitution.
-- In effect, they, the states, have 'sold out' to the powers that be, the socialist wings of both parties.
This, to me, is the real 'problem', and in his own stupid way, is what Lott was trying to say about '48.
68 -tpaine-

I think we can both agree that matters today would have been much better if the states in question had, on their own, resolved forced segration and brought their laws into line with the Constitution, rather than resisting that reform until the feds rammed it down their throats, along with other changes that exceeded the mandate to enforce equal protection.
72 -DB-

So 'Cat', -- getting back to the threads topic for the second time, -- can you agree with our points above? -- Or are you just bound on insisting that this thread is all about:

"Ah, yes. Let's talk about couching a yearn for segregation, Jim Crow laws & keepin' dem n--gras in their place in hifalutin' words." -catspaw-

There is an old saw, to the effect that the pen is mightier than the sword. ACLU members, unlike Klansmen, may not have personally engaged in murder or arson. However, how many people have been robbed or killed because local authorities do not have the ability to clean up red light districts or clear neighborhoods of undesirable characters? How many police officers have died in the line of duty because they hesitated in defending thenselves out of fear of bogus civil rights lawsuits? Out of fear of harassment or crippling lawsuits, many lawmen have ceased protecting residents of minority neighborhoods from the criminal element. As a result, organized crime becomes the real government in many inner city neighborhoods, to the detriment of safety and even life.

We can largely thank the ACLU for this situation. Their members wear nice suits and live in gated suburban areas, rather the Klan in their hoods and sheets and trailer parks. But if we look at the effects of the actions of the ACLU, we see far more loss of human life and far more overall damage to the minority community than was wreaked by the KKK in its heyday.

Odd how you define honor!

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