Southern Manifesto

The Declaration of Constitutional Principles (known informally as the Southern Manifesto) was a document written in February and March 1956, during the 84th United States Congress, in opposition to racial integration of public places.[1] The manifesto was signed by 19 US Senators and 82 Representatives from the Southern United States. The signatories included the entire congressional delegations from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia, most of the members from Florida and North Carolina, and several members from Tennessee and Texas. All of them were from the former Confederate states.[1] 99 were Democrats; 2 were Republicans.

School segregation in the United States by state prior to Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

The Manifesto was drafted to support reversing the landmark Supreme Court 1954 ruling Brown v. Board of Education, which determined that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. School segregation laws were some of the most enduring and best-known of the Jim Crow laws that characterized the South at the time.[2]

"Massive resistance" to federal court orders requiring school integration was already being practiced across the South, and was not caused by the Manifesto. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas had worked behind the scenes to tone down the original harsh draft. The final version did not pledge to nullify the Brown decision, nor did it support extralegal resistance to desegregation. Instead, it was mostly a states' rights attack against the judicial branch for overstepping its role.[3]

The Southern Manifesto accused the Supreme Court of "clear abuse of judicial power" and promised 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."[4] It suggested that the Tenth Amendment should limit the reach of the Supreme Court on such issues.[5] Senators led the opposition, with Strom Thurmond writing the initial draft and Richard Russell the final version.[6]

Three Democratic Senators from the former Confederate states did not sign:

• Al Gore Sr. and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee
• Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson of Texas

The following Democratic Representatives from the former Confederate states also did not sign:

• 16 of 21 Democrats from Texas, including Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and future Speaker Jim Wright
• 3 of 7 Democrats from Tennessee
• 3 of 11 Democrats from North Carolina
• 1 of 7 Democrats from Florida (Dante Fascell)

Also, none of the 12 U.S. Senators or 39 U.S. House Representatives from the states of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Oklahoma signed the Manifesto despite all requiring segregation in their public school systems prior to the Brown v. Board decision.[7]

This refusal earned them the enmity for a time of their colleagues who signed.

There were seven Republican Representatives from former Confederate states. Only two signed the Manifesto: Joel Broyhill and Richard Poff of Virginia.