Central Government and declaring the intention of South Carolina to exercise all powers reserved to it, to protect its sovereignty and the rights of its people" to be true and correct as taken from and compared with the original joint resolution so entitled, now on file in this office.

Further, that the said joint resolution received three readings on as many days in each branch of the general assembly, as evidenced by the signatures of the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives; was duly ratified; was approved by the Governor; and the great seal of the State was duly affixed thereon.

Given under my hand and the great seal of the State, at Columbia, the 15th day of March A.D. 1956.

[SEAL]

CALENDAR No. S. 514

O. FRANK THORNTON,
Secretary of State.

Introduced by Senators Gressette, Jefferies, John H. Williams, McFaddin, Abrams, Baskin, Brown, Callison, Dennis, Ellison, Graham, Grant, Hester, Kearse, Lawson, Lawton, Legare, Leppard, Long, Mars, Martin, McKown, Miley, Mishoe, Moore, Morrah, Morris, Morrison, Mozingo, Myrick, Parler, Powell, Richardson, Rodgers, Spigner, Stevens, Paul A. Wallace, W. Lewis Wallace, Weathersbee, West, Wheeler, Marshall B. Williams, W. Bruce Williams, Wilson, and Yonce.

A JOINT RESOLUTION Condemning and protesting the usurpation and encroachment on the reserved powers of the States by the Supreme Court of the United States, calling upon the States and Congress to prevent this and other encroachment by the Central Government, and declaring the intention of South Carolina to exercise all powers reserved to it, to protect its sovereignty and the rights of its people

Mindful of its responsibilities to its own citizens and of its obligations to the other States, the General Assembly of South Carolina adopts this resolution in condemnation of and protest gainst the illegal encroachment by the Central Government into the reserved powers of the States and the rights of the people, and against the grave threat to constitutional government, implicit in the recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, for these reasons:

1. The genius of the American Constitution lies in two provisions. It establishes a clear division between the powers delegated by the States to the Central Government and the powers reserved to the States, or to the people. As a prerequisite to any lawful redistribution of these powers, it establishes as a part of the process for its amendment the requirement of approval by the States.

The division of these powers is reaffirmed in the 10th amendment to the Constitution in these words: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Long judicial precedent also clearly reaffirms that Central Government is one of delegated powers, specifically enumerated in the Constitution, and that all other powers of Government, not prohibited by the Constitution to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.

The power to propose changes and the power to approve changes in the basic law is specifically stated by article V of the Constitution in these words: "The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of threefourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress

Lincoln, in his first inaugural, recognized these constitutional principles in the following language: "The maintenance inviolate to the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions, according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend ***”

2. Neither the judicial power delegated to the Supreme Court in article III of the Constitution nor such appellate jurisdiction as the article authorizes the Congress to confer upon the Court, makes the Court the Supreme Arbiter of the rights of the States under the compact.

3. The right of each of the States to maintain at its own expense racially separate public schools for the children of its citizens and other racially separate

public facilities is not forbidden or limited by the language or the intent of the 14th amendment. This meaning of the 14th amendment was established beyond reasonable question by the action of the Congress in providing for racially segregated schools in the District of Columbia by legislation contemporaneous with the submission of the 14th amendment to the States in 1866, and by the fact that a majority of the States in the Union at that time recognized that segregation in public facilities had not been abolished by this amendment. There is no evidence in the Constitution, in the amendments, or in any contemporary document that the States intended to give to the Central Government the right to invade the sanctity of the homes of America and deny to responsible parents a meaningful voice in the training of their children or in the selection of associates for them.

4. For almost 60 years, beginning in 1896, an unbroken line of decisions of the Court interpreted the 14th amendment as recognizing the right of the States to maintain racially separate public facilities for their people. If the Court in the interpretation of the Constitution is to depart from the sanctity of past decisions and to rely on the current political and social philosophy of its members to unsettle the great constitutional principles so clearly established, the rights of individuals are not secure and government under a written Constitution has no stability.

5. Disregarding the plain language of the 14th amendment, ignoring the conclusive character of the contemporary actions of the Congress and of the State legislatures, overruling its own decisions to the contrary, the Supreme Court of the United States on May 17, 1954, relying on its own views of sociology and psychology, for the first time held that the 14th amendment prohibited the States from maintaining racially separate public schools and since then the Court has enlarged this to include other public facilities. In so doing the Court, under the guise of interpretation, amended the Constitution of the United States, thus usurping the power of Congress to submit, and that of the several States to approve, constitutional changes. This action of the Court ignored the principle that the meaning of the Constitution and of its Amendments does not change. It is a written instrument. That which the 14th amendment meant when adopted it means now (South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 449).

6. The educational opportunities of white and colored children in the public schools of South Carolina have been substantially improved during recent years and highly satisfactory results are being obtained in our segregated schools. If enforced, the decision of the Court will seriously impair and retard the education of the children of both races, will nullify thees recent advances and will cause untold friction between the races.

7. Tragic as are the consequences of this decision to the education of the children of both races in the Southern States, the usurpation of constitutional power by the Court transcends the problems of segregation in education. The Court holds that regardless of the meaning of a constitutional provision when adopted, and in the language of the 1955 report of the Gray Commission to the Governor of Virginia, "irrespective of precedent, long acquiesced in, the Court can and will change its interpretation of the Constitution at its pleasure, disregarding the orderly processes for its Amendment set forth in article V thereof. It means that the most fundamental of the Rights of the States or of their citizens exist by the Court's sufferance and that the law of the land is whatever the Court may determine it to be ***" Thus the Supreme Court, created to preserve the Constitution, has planted the seed for the destruction of constitutional government.

8. Because the preservation of the rights of the States is as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the National Government, since "the Constitution, in all of its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States" (Texas v. White (1869), 7 Wallace 700, 725), and since the usurpation of the rights reserved to the States is by the judicial branch of the Central Government, the issues raised by this decision are of such grave import as to require this sovereign State to judge for itself of the infraction of the Constitution.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina: SECTION 1. That the States have never delegated to the Central Government the power to change the Constitution nor have they surrendered to the Central Government the power to prohibit to the States the right to maintain racially

separate but equal public facilities or the right to determine when such facilities are in the best interest of their citizens.

SEC. 2. That the action of the Supreme Court of the United States constitutes a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous attempt to change the true intent and meaning of the Constitution. It is in derogation of the power of Congress to propose, and that of the States to approve, constitutional changes. It thereby establishes a judicial precedent, if allowed to stand, for the ultimate destruction of constitutional government.

SEC. 3. That the State of South Carolina condemns and protests against the illegal encroachment by the Central Government into the reserved powers of the States and the rights of the people and against the grave threat to the constitutional government implicit in the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.

SEC. 4. That the States and the Congress do take appropiate legal steps to prevent, now and in the future, usurpation of power by the Supreme Court and other encroachment by the Central Government into the reserved powers of the States and the rights of the people to the end that our American system of constitutional government may be preserved.

SEC. 5. In the meantime, the State of South Carolina as a loyal and sovereign State of the Union will exercise the powers reserved to it under the Constitution to judge for itself of the infractions and to take such other legal measures as it may deem appropriate to protect its sovereignty and the rights of its people. SEC. 6. That a copy of this resolution be sent to the Governor and legislature of each of the other States, to the President of the United States, to each of the Houses of Congress, to South Carolina's Representatives and Senators in the Congress, and to the Supreme Court of the United States for its information. SEC. 7. This act shall take effect upon its approval by the Governor. In the senate house the 14th day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifty-six.

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS,

President of the Senate. SOLOMON BLATT,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Approved the 14th day of February 1956.

GEORGE BELL TIMMERMAN, Jr., Governor.

STATEMENT BY STATE SENATOR EDGAR A. BROWN BEFORE SUBCOMMITTEE Of U.S. SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE ON PROPOSED CIVIL RIGHTS LEGISLATION, TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1959, WASHINGTON, D.C.

I am Edgar A. Brown, of Barnwell, S.C. I am president pro tempore of the State Senate of South Carolina, and national Democratic committeeman from South Carolina.

For 45 years, I have served continuously as an official of the Democratic Party, and for 39 years I have served continuously in the Legislature of South Carolina.

As a matter of fact, due to the generosity of the people of my home county of Barnwell, I have been privileged to serve continuously longer in public affairs in the last half century than any other man in South Carolina.

Speaking from this background of intimate knowledge, I would declare without qualification that no further Federal civil rights legislation is necessary for freedom, justice, peace, and happiness among all the people of South Carolina. I go even further: I declare that those forces outside of the South who advocate such legislation are doing a terrible disservice to the well-being of all races and all people in South Carolina when they deliberately agitate such issues.

For reasons of year-to-year political expediency, these forces outside the South are threatening, by every new move they make, to disrupt the peace and harmony of the most deep-rooted, patriotic, God-fearing section of this great Nation.

Both national political parties are equally guilty of shortsighted political judgment. This is asserted by me with great shame for the Democratic Party after my 45 years of unswerving and loyal devotion.

If both the National Democratic and Republican Parties had requested Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow to draw up a program of baseless propaganda to utterly misrepresent and persecute the South, Khrushchev himself could not have done

a more thoroughly reprehensible job than have the policymakers of our own American political parties. I say this with apologies to no one.

I tell my fellow Democrats here and now, that those of us who have held the South together politically, believing that the Democratic Party means more to the welfare of the people of the Nation-that stalwart regular Democrats, as I claim to be, cannot be expected in the future to continue to keep our majority together if you pursue further the vicious affronts against our people. You insult white and Negroes alike when you engage in such false and useless methods.

Being a lifelong Democrat, I express appreciation to the Republicans among you for letting your party miss the boat politically when you decided to send paratroopers to Little Rock, and otherwise vented your political disdain of the responsible people of the South.

Often in politics we talk about the "good people" among our own constituents. Sometimes we try to pretend in a campaign that all people are good people. Actually, however, we know that in every section of the Nation there are people of real substance who have made this the greatest Nation in the history of the world. These people of substance are not in any particular class, race, or party. There are people of substance in all classes, races, and parties. Now, I charge that both national parties have completely disregarded the people of substance in the South, including the responsible Negro people. We have a large number of worthy and highly respected citizens among the Negro race in the South, citizens who serve the State increasingly well and who serve their own race faithfully and well.

What have you on this committee heard from responsible Negro citizens in South Carolina, or any other Southern State about civil rights?

If you have heard anything at all from them, I am confident that you have been told that our Negro population now enjoys all the civil rights afforded to all free Americans.

Oh, yes, we have insisted upon maintenance of segregated public schools in South Carolina, and, make no mistake about it, we will continue to insist upon segregated education in whatever form it must take, but the people of South Carolina, both white and Negro, have received and will continue to receive their full civil rights under the true meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

These guarantees are fulfilled without discrimination as to race. No need exists for a special agency or Federal supervision.

Constant agitation of the question, as though need did exist, serves as a dangerous and unwarranted irritant. Carried to an extreme, outside pressure will further seriously interfere with race relations that an official branch of State government (the Gressett Committee on Education) has just described as being most harmonious.

The term civil rights means the constitutional guarantees such as freedom of expression and assembly, fair trial, equal justice and other rights of free citizens-ownership of property, freedom to do business and so on.

The voting rights of qualified Negro citizens are not impaired in South Carolina. Nor is the right of Negroes to serve on juries. An increasing number of colored citizens have become eligible for voting and jury service, as anyone familiar with South Carolina polls and courtrooms can verify. South Carolinians of all races resent groundless suspicion cast on them by setting up Federal police authority in the name of a civil rights commission. They rightly regard it as an invasion of States rights which is also guaranteed by the Constitution.

We have adequate and proper civil rights laws within the State. State laws, with respect to separation of the races in some long established and generally accepted phases of activity, do not infringe on civil rights. These laws are designed to protect civil rights of both races, and to maintain the peace. On the other hand, deviously conceived pretenses of so-called rights threaten our peace and happiness among all races.

This, I say, with a sense of deep responsibility and sincerity: Leave South Carolina's affairs to South Carolinians, or the consequences are apt to be disastrous from several viewpoints, not the least of which might be the smashing of the solid political South.

The civil rights of parents to have a voice in the schooling of their children does not curtail constitutional civil rights as spelled out in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the U.S. Constitution. Negro citizens have identical rights of exclusion in these same areas.

Without these State and local protective laws and customs, based on many decades of friendly and satisfactory actual experience, the civil rights, and indeed the lives, of citizens of both races may be endangered.

Without going into the details of each of the hodgepodge of bills before your committee, I declare that no further Federal legislation will serve any worthwhile purpose on race relations in the South. If you want to spend some time on bad race relations, we strongly recommend that you go into other parts of the Nation where race riots and incidents are almost everyday news occurrences. We suggest that you look into teenage terrorism, and adult terrorism, among the melting pots of such large cities as New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Chicago. You find none of this mob racial unrest in South Carolina.

I like to point with pride to the fact that, after all of the sound and fury stirred up by propagandists from outside, the real proof of the solid friendship among the races in the South has been fully proven by the fact that we continue to live on the best of terms, with our Negro population enjoying full measures of progress and prosperity. We have more Negro teachers, doctors, businessmen, home and automobile owners, and otherwise successful Negro citizens per square mile in South Carolina than will be found in any other State of the Nation outside of the South.

Since most of the racial hullabaloo has originated and has been tragically exploited by irresponsible political opportunists outside of the South, I have placed heavy emphasis upon the misguided political aspects, because that is where it belongs.

Concluding, I wish to point out respectfully that my 45 years of continuous political service and experience dates back to the days of men like Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, Champ Clark, and many other notable figures. Never, during all of the time of those strong men in the Democratic Party, was there any evidence of any desire, just for political purposes-to single out any section of the Nation for such political skulduggery.

And I charge that when any of you from the rest of the country deliberately agitate such issues for political gain, you are being both unwise and unpatriotic. You are doing the Negro and other racial minorities, all of whom live in peaceful and happy circumstances in the South, an enormous injustice. You are striking at the very roots of individual freedom-the kind of freedom which has brought together from all over the world so many citizens of different races and nationalities into a Nation which stands as a symbol of individual freedom for the rest of the world-a world which is suffering in so many areas from so many shortcomings and hatreds which do not now exist in this country.

I urge you on this committee and all Members of Congress to consider well the present happy and harmonious life of all southern people before you make any more false moves under the pressure of political opportunists, misguided do-gooders, or others who either do not care about the South, or who would deliberately destroy the well-being of our people, for some selfish reason which has nothing to do with the real peace and progress of the Negro race in the South.

Senator JOHNSTON. I would now like to introduce the president pro tempore of the Senate of the State of South Carolina. Everybody knows Edgar A. Brown.

Edgar, we are delighted to have you here.

Senator HENNINGS. Senator Brown, we are very glad to have you here this morning.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman, I have already filed with your counsel my prepared statement.

I have been in the Senate of South Carolina longer than any official in the State.

Senator HENNINGS. How long is that, Senator?

Mr. BROWN. For 32 years. I was speaker of the house and in the house 6 years before that, so my service goes back to some 38 years.

I have a better record than that in the Democratic Party, Mr. Chairman. I have been club president of the national committeemen for the last 45 years-not always in the same place all the time-but I am now the national committeeman from South Carolina.