[Wallace T.]

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!

[JohnGalt]

Rothbard, bump.

The FDR and Truman apoligists are out in force. Truman (a brief member of the KKK) was part of an administration that actually stripped rights away from American citizens and hauled them into concentration camps, and then they have the gaul to say somehow that Thurmond was the racist bad guy?

[vbmoneyspender]

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.

So I take it that until the Constitution was amended after the Civil War had ended, the Federal Gov't had no business bothering itself with a 'social ill' like slavery.

[Fabozz]

"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..."

Nice sleight of hand, but the 1948 Dixiecrats were not resisting the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Dixiecrats were resisting, in effect, the XIVth and XVth Amendments—heck, they were practically resisting the XIIIth Amendment. But if the federal government has no legitimate authority to prevent states' violations of Constitutional rights reserved for the people or prohibited to the states, the entire document becomes meaningless. If the federal government cannot enforce the XIVth and XVth Amendments, then it also cannot enforce Article IV, Section 4, and there's nothing to prevent a state from reverting to monarchy.

I absolutely concur that the civil "rights" movement of the 60s trampled the Constitution by equating private, voluntary action with coercive government action. However, the Democrats of the 40s had no more respect for freedom of association than the Democrats of today do. Strom Thurmond repudiated their beliefs long ago, and I'm stunned that so many Republicans here find it hard to do the same. Just because the Dixiecrats used to be the enemy of our enemy, that does not make them our friend.