Senator Clarence Case of South Dakota was among the first to speak meaningfully on the subject of Senate Joint Resolution 39, specifically to express his disappointment at how the measure had fared in the lower house and how little time remained to make further modifications. “I, too, regret the dropping of the other two proposals in the triple-pronged constitutional amendment as it passed the Senate,” he said, echoing those of his colleagues who had already expressed their dissatisfaction.
However, we are approaching the end
of the session, and we all recognize the practical situation which exists. I
regret particularly the dropping of the provision for a Delegate in the House
of Representatives. However, so far as the Senator from South Dakota is
concerned, I recognized that in that particular matter, since the House of
Representatives itself was concerned with it, we should respect their wishes in
that particular.
One is given to wonder the extent to which this latter remark was an uncalled-for attempt at graciousness on Case’s part. If the present session of Congress was indeed nearing its end, this was no doubt in keeping with the intentions of those who desired to reduce S.J. Res. 39 to little more than a symbolic gesture.
As originally dispatched to the House from the Senate, the relevant initiative would have granted D.C. meaningful representation in the halls of Congress and vastly expanded the franchise to include those of severely limited financial means. Granted, the individual ultimately elected to represent the District in the House would not, as a given, have had the right to a vote. But they would at least have been in a position to speak on behalf of their fellow D.C. residents in the only decision-making body to which that community could lay claim. As the majority of sitting House members were unwilling to permit this to occur, however, they instead sought to engineer an outcome more to their liking by simultaneously eliminating the resolution’s most significant provisions and then withholding their input until such time had passed as to make another round of reconciliation impossible. Evidently unwilling to permit the relevant senators to make their case in full, they accordingly changed the terms of the discussion to something very much like an ultimatum. That is, the choice afforded to the Senate was reduced down to either approving what was left of S.J. Res. 39 – which proposed to do nothing more that permit the inhabitants of the District of Columbia to appoint presidential electors – or letting the whole initiative lapse. Bearing in mind the impassioned plea made some months earlier by Senator Keating and Senator Case for the final erasure of the “blot” that was the continued disenfranchisement of the District of Columbia, Case’s admission that he, “Recognized that in that particular matter, since the House of Representatives itself was concerned with it, we should respect their wishes in that particular” would accordingly seem likely to have been more than a little disingenuous. Or at the very least, if sincere, it would seem likely to have been somewhat forced. Knowing full well that he and his colleagues in the Senate would have to continue working with the House on other matters in the future, Case doubtless did his best to put as positive a spin on the matter as he could.
It was at this point – perhaps unsurprisingly, given how late into the session the whole affair was taking place – that things got…interesting. After Jennings Randolph of West Virginia (1902-1998) rose to make the point that, “The platforms of both major parties have spoken out again and again affirmatively for this desirable ideal. I should like to leave the thought – and I know it is shared by Senators who believe as we who are speaking tonight believe – that this is not a partisan issue in any sense [,]” Senator Case opted to respond in such a way as to expand upon the notion that party affiliation was not necessarily relevant to the issue at hand. The reason, he explained, that certain members of Congress took a particular interest in the goings-on of the District of Columbia was not just an outgrowth of either partisan policy or physical proximity. Yes, it was the case that the Democratic Party, since the creation of the New Deal Coalition in the 1930s, had increasingly become the party of civil rights and the expansion of the franchise. And yes, it was true that people like the aforementioned Joel Broyhill, due to the fact that many of their constituents worked in the District, had a vested interest in ensuring that the nation’s capital was livable and well-maintained. But as often, Case affirmed, senators and congressmen grew to regard the well-being of D.C. and its inhabitants as being of personal interest to themselves simply because of their service on the relevant congressional committees. Case himself was one such member, having served as the chairmen of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia from 1953 to 1955. Randolph was another, having chaired the House Committee on the District of Columbia from 1939 to 1947. And another, spoken of reverently by Case, was a West Virginia senator by the name of Matthew Mansfield Neely (1974-1958).
Though Neely had died some two years prior – indeed, Randolph had been elected to serve out what remained of his final term in office – even a brief survey of his career would seem to more than justify his admiring mention by Case. Not only had Neely, a native of West Virginia, represented that state in both houses of Congress for a combined total of thirty-five years between 1913 and his death in 1958, but he had also been elected governor of the same for a four-year term beginning in 1941. And while his status, particularly in his early career, as an avowed Wilsonian Democrat would otherwise indicate that his politics roughly amounted to a combination of economic liberalism and unswerving support for segregation, in actual fact Neely was one of the most consistently progressive members of the Senate throughout his tenure in office. In the 1930s, during his second Senate term, he sponsored anti-lynching legislation at a time when many of his fellow Southern Democrats were still proudly touting their affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1940s, at the height of the New Deal Coalition’s power, he positioned himself as an ardent champion of both organized labor and civil rights. And in the 1950s, after returning to the Senate for the final time and being assigned to chair the Committee on the District of Columbia, he accordingly became the preeminent spokesman for home rule in the District. Though a Democrat and a Southerner, his position was clear and unambiguous: at a time when Washington was on the cusp of becoming the nation’s first and only major city with a majority Black population, it was imperative that Congress turn over control to the inhabitants thereof.
Neely himself did not live to see this particular goal accomplished, of course. But his example would seem to have been keenly felt by the likes of fellow Senators Case, Randolph, Keating, and Beall. Though none of them, materially speaking, had the least investment in what transpired in the District of Columbia, Neely had shown them – and their service on the relevant congressional committees had surely served to affirm – that the nation’s capital was no more the plaything of Congress than were the millions of otherwise disenfranchised and disadvantaged Americans who relied on the federal government to define the nature and extent of the opportunities afforded to them as citizens. The result was arguably just as Randolph had described it. Though Keating, Case, and Beall were all Republicans while Randolph was a Democrat, they were nevertheless all united in their common advocacy for the enfranchisement of the District of Columbia. Some members of Congress, it was true, wished to limit the extent to which this enfranchisement was accomplished. But this position, likewise, was not necessarily tied to partisan affiliation. Many a Southern Democrat, for reasons of purest racial animus, had reason to believe that granting too much self-government to the District was a mistake. But for that matter, so did Joel Broyhill, a lifelong Republican who nevertheless believed wholeheartedly in segregation and in maintaining congressional control over D.C. The relevant divide, it seemed, was not political or ideological so much as regional, cultural, or personal. Some people, because of where they grew up or the nature of their education, simply didn’t believe that vesting the administration of the nation’s capital in the hands of its majority Black inhabitants was particularly wise. And just so, certain other people, because of how they were raised or their experiences in public service, had come to the unshakeable conclusion that justice could only be served by treating the inhabitants of the District of Columbia the same as every other community of American citizens.
Having initially allowed his colleague, Senator Case, to take the lead in expressing the disappointment felt by the cosponsors of S.J. Res. 39 at its butchering by the House, Senator Keating at length decided to lend his own voice to what was fast becoming a kind of legislative eulogy. “This proposed constitutional amendment [,]” he said,
Should restore to the people of the
District of Columbia some measure – but certainly not a full measure – of
democracy. The amendment certainly represents an advance over the present
un-American condition imposed on the residents of the Nation's Capital, but it
still falls far short of what I feel we should do.
Case had already
said as much himself, of course, but this turned out to be only the beginning
of what Keating desired to express. Because whereas Case was quite gracious in
his evaluation of the resolution’s fate, Keating was positively accusatory. “Under
these circumstances,” he continued,
Although I shall support the joint
resolution, I must express my concern because of the fact that this historic
step in the development of our democratic institutions has been marred by the “take
it or leave it” attitude with which this limited amendment has been presented
to us. As is so often true when District of Columbia problems are before us, we
have relegated this important measure to consideration during the twilight
hours of the day, in the twilight weeks of the session.
This lament was arguably rendered all the more poignant by the fact that Keating was admitting defeat in the same breath that he pointed the finger of blame. “I shall support the joint resolution,” he said, in spite of the “‘take it or leave it” attitude with which the limited amendment had been presented to us.” But while the vandals in the House had evidently succeeded in their attempt to force the sponsors of S.J. Res. 39 to accept far less than total victory, Keating was not about to let them walk away unmarred.
It wasn’t just that the House had
reduced the aforesaid resolution to a pale shadow of its former self by
stripping out what were arguably its most substantial provisions, Keating went
on to avow. It was that the congressmen in question had rewritten even the
central provision that remained so as to render it, in practice, a grotesque
mockery of its authors’ intention. “The amendment,” Keating continued,
As approved by the House of
Representatives […] limits the representation of the District of Columbia in
the electoral college to a maximum of three, regardless of the population of the
District of Columbia. However, Mr. President, inasmuch as the District of
Columbia, under the present method of apportionment, would be entitled to
either four, or possibly five, members of the electoral college if the District
of Columbia were a State, the House amendment in effect would make a
three-fourths citizen or a three-fifths citizen of every resident of the
District of Columbia. This concept of "fractional" citizenship is a
new one, which to me is abhorrent.
Notwithstanding
Keating’s declaration to the contrary, “fractional citizenship” has actually had
a long and problematic history within the context of the United States
Constitution. Article I, Section 2 of that selfsame document famously permitted
enslaved peoples to be counted in terms of congressional apportionment and
electoral votes to the tune of three-fifths of each person. The 14th
Amendment later rendered this particular clause null and void, of course, and
the comprise which produced the three-fifths ratio actually represented a
victory for those who opposed slavery and its attendant economic advantages. But
the notion of weighing certain human as something less than equal to others has
nevertheless cast a long shadow across the American political discourse
concerning the nature and limits of citizenship. By invoking the three-fifths
ratio exactly, Keating was therefore almost assuredly seeking to draw a
critical comparison between the manner in which the United States Constitution had
once regarded enslaved peoples and the manner in which the modified version of
S.J. Res. 39 would end up treating the residents of the District of Columbia.
Consider, if not the practical implications, then the apparent moral significance of the original three-fifths clause. As far as the Constitution was concerned, an enslaved person was the equivalent of only three-fifths of a free person. Notwithstanding what this meant in practice as far as apportionment was concerned, what other conclusions must it have forced generations of Americans to draw? That enslaved peoples were not entitled to all of the same rights as free peoples? That their lives were worth only a fraction of those of free peoples? That their interests, as a community, were less important than those of the free community? Functionally speaking, all of these questions were answered in the affirmative by the manner in which enslaved peoples were treated both in public and private setting until at least the events of the Civil War and Reconstruction. It was not always so stated in law, of course. In many jurisdictions, for example, it was illegal to kill an enslaved person even if the defendant could convincingly claim to have owned the victim in question. In practice, however, this protection amounted to little more than a genteel façade. The sanctity of private property being among the core concepts at the heart of American republican philosophy, American slaveowners in the 18th and 19th centuries were generally free to dispose of those they claimed to own in whatever manner they saw fit. And because American slavery, while likewise rarely described as such in print, was absolutely grounded upon an unequal evaluation of race and racial value, the sense of comparative worthlessness with which members of the white majority viewed the enslaved Black minority most definitely transferred over to the free Black community in turn.
Case in point, recall the sheer number of recorded instances over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries in which a free Black person – whom the law formally regarded as the equal of any white person – was accused of some manner of offense, kidnapped by a vigilante mob, and summarily executed without trial. Such instances were extremely – one might say horrifyingly – common in the decades preceding the Civil War, continued throughout and after Reconstruction, and remained alarmingly frequent well into the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Where these expressions of violence against members of the Black community motivated solely by the apparent moral implications of the three-fifths clause? Of course not. The white mobs who committed these abhorrent acts did not do so out of some misplaced sense of fealty to a clause of the United States Constitution. But the three-fifths clause did undeniably become tied up with prevailing white opinions about the relative moral worth of the nation’s Black inhabitants. Granting, as aforementioned, that the 14th Amendment formally nullified the relevant passage of the Constitution in 1868, those inclined to assert the supposed worthlessness of their Black fellow citizens could – and did, and still do – point to the three-fifths clause as evidence that the Framers never intended Black people to be treated as the equals of their white counterparts. Logically speaking, this makes for an exceptionally poor argument. Not only does it ignore the fact that a free Black community existed at the time that the Constitution was drafted to which the three-fifths clause did not apply, but it likewise entirely overlooks the simple truth that, had the Southern, pro-slavery Framers had their way in 1787, enslaved peoples would have been counted as whole persons rather than fractionally. The kind of people who are inclined to attempt to weaponize the three-fifths clause will not be moved by such arguments, of course. As far as they are concerned, the words mean – and have always meant – what they want them to mean. Namely, that Black people are morally and legally inferior to white people.
Bearing all of this in mind, what would it mean, in practice, for the inhabitants of the District of Columbia to be granted representation in the Electoral College in the early 1960s by an effective ratio of three-fifths? Doubtless, on all counts, it would amount to something of a disaster. From the perspective of D.C.’s majority Black population, it would surely be a source of humiliation and disgust to once more be subject to a fractional counting of their numbers within the context of the federal power structure. Granted – and as Keating would go on to point out – possessing even three-fifths of the influence to which they were entitled in the Electoral College was arguably better than continuing to be completely voiceless. But to once again be subject to a statutory undercounting, solely for the purpose of satisfying the almost exclusively white power brokers who then controlled the United States Congress, would surely prove to be a thoroughly degrading experience, and one which would almost certainly worsen the already fraught relationship which then existed – arguably, has always existed – between Congress and the District. For the predominantly Southern segregationists then serving in Congress, of course, the opposite was almost certainly bound to be the case.
Having loudly and unambiguously made clear their belief that the Black community could not be trusted to govern itself effectively, the Joel Broyhills, Strom Thurmonds, and James Eastlands of the world – the latter two, senators from South Carolina and Mississippi, respectively, being among the upper house’s most vehement segregationists – would doubtless praise the resulting electoral arrangement as a kind of twisted, twofold victory. On the one hand, having granted representation in the Electoral College to a jurisdiction previously excluded from any manner of democratic participation, the segregationists would doubtless claim for themselves the mantle of generous benefactor to the community living therein. After all, who could possibly call them bigots once they’d made a point of granting the nation’s first city with a Black majority a role in disposing of the highest office in the land? On the other hand, of course, would be the reality of the situation. The aforementioned Southern segregationists would indeed be partly responsible for granting the inhabitants of the District of Columbia a role to play in the election of the President of the United States. Just not the role to which this selfsame community was entitled. They would be able to send delegates to the Electoral College, indisputably. Just not as many delegates at their numbers would otherwise indicate. Not only would this more or less guarantee that D.C. would never play a decisive role in any subsequent presidential election, but it would also arguably represent a symbolic victory on the part of the aforementioned segregationists. For though they might appear to have caved to the supporters of S.J. Res. 39 by agreeing to grant the inhabitants of the District a voice in national political affairs, they will have done so only after having ensured that the influence of the community in question was so diluted as to be functionally inconsequential. Petty though such a claim to victory might seem, bigots and hatemongers have historically been known to rapturously celebrate far less.
Senator Keating’s fear that such a scenario was about to come to pass still did not stop him from offering the modified resolution his continued support, however. “Three-fourths citizenship or three-fifths citizenship is better than no citizenship at all [,]” he accordingly affirmed.
Therefore no Member who has at heart
the interests of the District of Columbia could vote against the amendment,
particularly in view of the circumstances with which we are faced and the
realization that at this time the question is either this or nothing at all.
However, Mr. President, I can only voice my sorrow because of the fact that we
have missed this opportunity to bestow full citizenship rights on our fellow
Americans, the residents of the District of Columbia.
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