No. I only desire that the Federal government be restricted to only those powers delineated to it under the Constitution. I would also prefer that governmental authority, especially on the Federal level, not restrict the exercise of property rights nor inhibit freedom of association. If that leads to greater mingling or increased separation of the races, so be it. That is all fine and well, but explain to me how you would have gotten rid of Jim Crow, or slavery for that matter, without federal involvement.
At the time of the enactment of the Civil Rights acts, there was some question as to how to address the constitutional challenges. The 13th amendment to the constitution not only eliminated slavery but clearly gave to Congress the authority to eliminate the vestiges of slavery. The Congress could have used the 13th Amendment to not only pass anti-lynching laws but civil rights legislation. However, Nicholas Katzenbach, the assistant attorney general at the time chose to defend the Civil Rights Acts on the grounds that Jim Crow restricted interstate commerce. That proved to be the winning argument before the USSC. It avoided the political ramifications of invoking the 13th amendment.
Jim Crow was economically disafvantageous to the South. It suppressed the advancement of the region especially in the post-War period. While southern states would have probably jettisoned Jim Crow eventually for those economic reasons, but it would have taken awhile. However, I think that the federal government had the authority through the 13th or the commerce clause.
The Constitution can be amended, as it was in the early 1960s to prohibit a poll tax in Federal elections, and in 1865 to prohibit slavery. Where the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment, requires the states to treat its citizens equally and grants the Federal government the authority to require that the states do so, this would be a legitimate exercise of Federal authority. An example of this would be the higher standards required of blacks to pass State sanctioned bar and medical licesning tests in many Southern states. However, the Equal Housing Act of 1968 and the public accomodation sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 went beyond the 14th Amendment provision for equality in governmental action and into the area of private business and personal association. Said proposals should have been proposed as amendments to the Constitution and ratified by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and three-quarters of the state legislatures.
It is not the business of government to correct all social ills, especially those caused by the decisions of free people, wise or not. Whites, and members of other races, prefer to associate with members of their own race, by and large. This is even true of white liberals: I dare say that in 2002 Beverly Hills, Chicago's Gold Coast, and Philadelphia's Main Line are as lily white as the congregation of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, South of Jackson, Mississippi, was in 1932. Laws by themselves do not change human nature; they only affect behavior, at least when the cops are in sight.
Would that neo-conservatives and liberals recognize these facts!
That is all fine and well, but explain to me how you would have gotten rid of Jim Crow, or slavery for that matter, without federal involvement.Not only that, but it is a proper use of federal power and force to ensure that states adhere to the core provisions of the Constitution. Jim Crow was a direct violation of the concept of equal protection. Plessy v. Ferguson even tacitly admitted the importance of the concept, with its "separate but equal" langauge. Since forced segregation was anything but equal, that nullified Plessey and justified federal force to make states adhere to the Constituiton.