Foiled in his attempt to mire the anti-poll tax amendment debate that took place on March 14th, 1962 in a sentimental digression about the American Civil War, Georgia Senator Richard Russell instead chose to respond to the amendment’s primary sponsor, Florida Senator Spessard Holland, by defaulting once more to rank condescension. “The Senator from Florida [,]” he said,
Is at least to be commended for
seeking this objective through the process of amendment to the Constitution,
instead of a statute. His process is consistent with the constitutional system.
I think that the objective is inconsistent with the philosophy of the rights of
the States. That is where my friend and I differ.
It was a slight insult, to be sure, but an insult, nonetheless. Here was Richard Russell, attempting, in his own words, to defend the rights of the states against unwarranted federal intrusion. And whom did he find himself opposing in this instance? Not only a fellow Democrat, but a fellow Southerner. It was enough to make a person question the depth of Senator Holland’s convictions. Senator Russell cared deeply about the constitutional protections afforded to the states. Indeed, he would go on to quote certain of them to the letter over the course of the oration that was to follow. Was it the case, then, that Holland didn’t care about these things? Were his claims to support state sovereignty a misrepresentation of his true beliefs? For his part, Senator Russell did not dwell on these implied questions for very long. Before Holland had a chance to answer the charge that he was acting in a manner “inconsistent with the philosophy of the rights of the states [,]” the Georgian moved swiftly into yet another acid-tongued assertion that the poll tax wasn’t really a problem.
“A great many of those who depend for their election year after year on the votes of minority groups within their States [,]” Russell began,
Have tried to make it appear there
was some question of imposition on colored people, or some question of rights
of Negroes as contradistinguished from rights of whites, involved in the
question of the poll tax. It has nothing whatever to do with it. The States
which require a poll tax today apply this levy equally to all voters and to all
prospective voters without regard to race, creed, or color. We all know that if
that were not the case, and if the States were not doing so now, the pressure
groups would have had the Supreme Court strike down these State poll tax laws a
long, long time ago.
Russell’s barely concealed bitterness at the state of contemporary American political culture is particularly evident in this passage. Previously, he had lamented what he saw as a mounting trend toward political conformity among the American people and their elected representatives. America, he said, “grew faster, built a better system of government, and developed […] a way of life that has been the envy of mankind all over the world” precisely because the various states “did not conform or have to conform [.]” And now, to the same end, he was complaining specifically about the Supreme Court.
“We all know [,]” said Russell, that if poll taxes did not apply to all Americans of voting age regardless of race, color, or creed, “the pressure groups would have had the Supreme Court strike down these State poll tax laws a long, long time ago.” Plainly, this was in reference to Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the series of pro-civil rights decisions that followed it over the course of the late 50s and early 60s. Brown, of course, mandated the desegregation of American public schools, the primary response to which, across the American South, was shock, anger, and ardent resentment on the part of local citizens groups and political power brokers alike. But while Southern legislators serving in Congress gave voice to their displeasure in the form of the Southern Manifesto (1956) – the purpose of which was to essentially inform the Supreme Court that further anti-segregation rulings would meet with the utmost resistance – further such rulings were handed down all the same. In Cooper v. Aaron (1958), for example, the Court quashed an attempt by the Little Rock, Arkansas school district to postpone its desegregation program in deference to the pro-segregationist actions of the state’s governor and legislators. “State support of segregated schools through any arrangement, management, funds or property cannot be squared with the command of the Fourteenth Amendment that no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws [,]” all nine justices unanimously agreed. Two years later, in Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960), the Court responded to a lawsuit filed by Tuskegee Institute professor Charles G. Gomillion (1900-1995) against the city of Tuskegee, Alabama claiming the existence of a discriminatory gerrymander by declaring that “Even the broad power of a State to fix the boundaries of its municipalities is limited by the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbids a State to deprive any citizen of the right to vote because of his race.” That same year, the Court also found – in Boynton v. Virginia – that the practice of racial discrimination on interstate bus lines represented a violation of the Interstate Commerce Act (1887), the immediate result of which was the Freedom Rider movement of 1961.
Naturally – given his status as a Southern, segregationist, states’ rights Democrat – Richard Russell was not at all pleased by the increasingly activist bent of the Warren Court represented by cases like these. He himself had co-authored the aforementioned Southern Manifesto, and it must have been both personally and ideologically galling to have his own concerted efforts to warn the Court away from such behavior so completely and publicly ignored. Throughout most of the 19th century, the Supreme Court had been a bastion of judicial conservatism and a bulwark against the expansion of the practical authority of the federal government. Decisions like Dredd Scott v. Sanford (1857) and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) – which respectively asserted the inability of Black Americans to claim citizenship and established the doctrine of “separate but equal” – were the inevitable result, leading many a Southern segregationist to quite naturally conclude that the federal courts were one of the most powerful tools at their disposal for the protection and expansion of the Jim Crow regime in particular and white supremacy in general.
The replacement of the cautious Southerner Fred Vinson (1890-1953) as Chief Justice in 1954 with the unapologetically progressive Earl Warren (1891-1974) quickly and completely upended this assumption, however, leading to an equally understandable reaction on the part of ardent segregationists like Richard Russell. Where once – in his opinion – the Court had been a dependable guardian of unchallenged state sovereignty, now it was reduced to little more than the obedient lapdog of liberal pressure groups like the NAACP and the ACLU. The discussion at hand was not about the Supreme Court, of course, any more than it was about the Civil War or the 14th and 15th Amendments. But all of these things, to a greater or lesser extent, did orbit around the center of gravity that was – and is – race relations in the United States. The Court had recently refashioned itself as dependable guardian of minority rights and an opponent of Jim Crow, principally by seizing on a more liberal interpretation of the 14th and 15th Amendments than had previously been the norm. It was understandable, then, why someone like Russell might take the opportunity to cast aspersions upon what he perceived to be an overly activist Supreme Court in the midst of a discussion about amending the Constitution for the purpose of banning poll taxes. In his mind – and in many others’ – it all came from the same place.
Russell next proceeded, as aforementioned, to quote from the text of the Constitution in support of the right of the states to determine the parameters of the electoral franchise – see Article I, Section 2 – before then resorting to a species of outright gaslighting in an attempt to once more shrug off the very idea that the poll tax was actually a problem. “We hear much about the differences in the State laws [,]” he observed.
That is one of the great things about
this country of ours. If a man does not like the laws in one State he can move
to another State […] If he finds that the majority of the people in the State
in which he lives are irrevocably committed to a law or to a system of law in
which he does not believe, we have great interstate highways, great railway
systems, extensive methods of transportation to enable the man to move to a
State in which he does find laws to his liking [.]
A more willfully
ignorant view of the burdens imposed by the poll tax, one would fairly struggle
to imagine. To Russell’s thinking, it would seem, freedom of movement within
the United States was guarantee enough against being forced to either pay an
undesirable tax or suffer the consequences of non-payment. Don’t like the
electoral laws in Alabama? Simply pick up and move to Georgia. The highways are
there, the railways are there, and there’s really no excuse for failing to use
them. There are, of course, at least two things fundamentally faulty with this
perspective.
On the one hand, speaking practically, it simply wouldn’t have been possible – or if possible, would have been exceedingly burdensome – for those most effected by the poll tax to simply pick up and move to a different state. These were people, after all, who couldn’t spare a dollar a year to be able to register to vote. It was not in the least bit reasonable to expect them to leave behind their lives and livelihoods in order to escape an unjust law. Many of them did not own automobiles, or couldn’t afford train tickets, or simply couldn’t afford to be out of work for more than a few days at a time. Americans have moved to different states – and continue to move to different states – in order to escape the effects of laws that they consider to be burdensome, of course. But one should never conclude from this unfortunate fact that such movement ought to be thought of as anything other than a last resort. The uprooting of people’s lives, the effective exiling of entire families; these things should never be spoken of in a casual, offhand manner, or held up as evidence of an effective system of government. At the same time, speaking morally, it simply isn’t right to create and maintain a system of fundamental rights that is less than comprehensively applied. If the ability of a given person to exercise all of their rights is conditional on where they live and how much money they can spare, then the things they are seeking to exercise are not really rights at all. Privileges may be purchased; privileges may be granted unevenly. But rights are applied universally, unconditionally, and without favor. That Richard Russell would argue against this in his position as a United States Senator is truly a disheartening thing. But in light of his being a Southerner, a Democrat, and an avowed white supremacist, it is perhaps not an unexpected thing.
Nor is the fact that, as he continued his diatribe against Senator Holland’s anti-poll tax amendment, he next shifted his tone to a kind of breathless alarmism. “In my opinion,” he declared,
This issue should not divert the
attention of the Senate in this very critical period of our history […] I do
not think that a constitutional amendment, standing by itself […] would be so
harmful. But I resent efforts from any source to take away and circumscribe the
few rights and powers that the States have left. When we finally destroy the
Federal system by making the States impotent and constituting mere geographical
areas that are designated from Washington […] we shall have destroyed this
great system that has made our country what it is.
Evidently, far from constituting simply the final and unequivocal removal of an unjustifiable barrier to the exercise of one of the fundamental rights of American citizenship, an anti-poll tax amendment of the kind favored by Senator Spessard Holland of Florida represented the beginning of the end of the federal system of government. So completely had the national government thus far robbed the states of the rights and powers to which they were otherwise due that simply prohibiting them from levying a dollar per year per person to register to vote would bring about their utter disintegration into “mere geographical areas that are designated from Washington [.]”
Clearly, though Senator Russell was guilty of a great many things, he was at the very least innocent of doing anything less than his utmost to defeat the anti-pol tax amendment then being offered by Senator Holland. He employed misdirection, appeals to emotion, condescension, and finally hyperbole, all while maintaining the tenor of civility and collegial respect required by the rules and traditions of the United States Senate. Indeed, were it not so misguided, it would have made for a truly impressive rhetorical display. In reality, of course, it was the people whose vote was being held hostage by an unjustifiable tax whose fate was then in the hands of the assembled members of the United States Senate. And though they numbered in the millions, their disenfranchisement ensured that their ability to in any way shape the character or the actions of the governments to whose authority they were beholden was functionally non-existent. As described by Russell, however, the actual situation was almost entirely the reverse. The people who were daily suffering under the effects of the poll tax were not the victims their advocates claimed them to be. On the contrary, Russell avowed, it was the states who were suffering. The states whose rights had been stripped away piece by piece. The states whose authority over their own citizens was being diluted to nothingness. And the states, if this trend continued, who were doomed to dissolution. To every American who loved their home state just as much as they loved their country, this was doubtless an alarming outcome to be forced to consider. There was no truth to it, to be sure – the states were not in any fundamental danger, least of all from the banning of the poll tax – but that mattered little under the circumstances. If Richard Russell could convince enough of his colleagues that the states were on the verge of total disintegration, they would react with the same urgency as if the sky itself was falling.
Fortunately, both for Senator Russell and for the captive audience that were his Senate colleagues – the man needed to rest his voice, just as they needed a rest from it – the Georgian next opted to cede the floor rather than continue on at greater length. Thus it was that New York Republican Jacob Javits (1904-1986) finally joined the discussion. Javits, for his part, had supported Senator Holland’s previous effort to introduce a constitutional amendment eliminating the poll tax in 1960. But in this instance, some two years later, he found fault with the Floridian’s method. Not only was he troubled by the fact that the proposal in question was coming at the expense of a previously-scheduled bill for the purpose of declaring the home of Alexander Hamilton’s to be a national monument – something which, as a New Yorker, he was more or less bound to support. But he also felt that Holland’s insistence on specifically pursuing a constitutional amendment to be fundamentally misguided. The poll tax, he firmly asserted, was “so anomalous, such a strange development in our national life, that we ought to take the first and the earliest opportunity to be rid of it.” Indeed, he further affirmed, “both as a lawyer and as a Senator, […] this is an anomaly, an encumbrance upon the rights of the citizens, not of any State, but of the United States.” But was a constitutional amendment either the best way or the most expedient way to eliminate it for all time? Senator Javits had his doubts.
The United States Civil Rights Commission, in its report following the Election of 1960, had made twenty-seven recommendations to Congress with the aim of protecting and promoting the civil rights of the American people. Of those, Javits observed, only a handful had been acted upon in any substantial way in the two years following the report’s release. One of the recommendations had been the elimination of electoral literacy tests, another the elimination of poll taxes. But while the Senate was in the process of addressing both of these issues, Javits openly wondered at the sincerity of certain members of the same. A draft bill banning literacy tests had only recently been sent to committee, the result of which, Javits was sure, would be a full hearing on the Senate floor. But if the assembled senators, in the meantime, endorsed the banning of poll taxes by amendment, would that not set a binding precedent for the banning of literacy tests as well? Would it not render invalid the legislative approach to civil rights reform? And was this not, perhaps, the aim of certain senators, to raise the threshold of support that civil rights reforms were required to clear? Indeed, Javits further wondered, was this all part of the plan of the opponents of civil rights? Was it not quite likely the case “that the most ardent segregationist, if he could settle for these two matters, literacy tests and poll taxes, and know that that is all there would be, would probably support these measures himself [?]”
The surest way to combat such plots – if, indeed, such plots were in motion – was to pursue what Senator Javits called “the statutory route.” That is, rather than seek a constitutional amendment – which would require supermajority support in both houses of Congress and the ratification of two-thirds of the various state legislatures – the opponents of the poll tax should instead simply seek to propose a law with the effect of banning the same. “We have the right and we have the duty,” the New Yorker accordingly asserted,
When that question arises, to take
the path which in good conscience will most directly and immediately lead to
the desired result. That very clearly is the path of a statute. I will be
prepared to argue that that path is entirely constitutional and entirely
appropriate under the amendments to the Constitution as well as under the
Constitution itself, and also under the decided cases of the United States
Supreme Court.
The notion that an amendment to the Constitution might not even have been necessary in order to ban the levying of poll taxes is compelling enough on its own, of course. Javits was effectively calling into question that last several years of Senator Holland’s career. Had he actually been wasting his time? Could he have achieved his stated goal long ago? The New Yorker seemed to think so. It was his opinion, as a legislator and as a lawyer, that the Constitution already gave Congress the right to regulate the electoral policies of the various states. Recalling the text of Article I, Section 4, one does find potential cause for agreement.
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof [.]” the clause begins, “but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” Granting that “the manner of holding elections” is rather a vague concept within the context of the law, one might nevertheless reasonably argue that it encompasses the delimitation of qualified electors. Presumably, this is the first step in determining who is registered and who is not. Are they a citizen? Are they of age? Have they committed a felony? Are they otherwise disqualified? In five states, as of 1962, non-payment of a poll tax would register as an alternative disqualification. Presumably, then, under the banner of prescribing “the manner of holding elections” in the various states, Congress might have passed a law which simply declared that failing to pay a poll tax could not be considered a valid bar against casting a ballot in a federal election. The effected states would cry foul and file suit, of course, leaving the legislation in question in legal limbo for some time. But if only these five states stood in opposition to the relevant bill – thus making a successful filibuster in the Senate effectively impossible – then it still might have been faster to go the statutory route. That is to say, depending on how long it took the matter to be resolved in the federal courts, an anti-poll tax bill could potentially become law in less time than it would take for an anti-poll tax amendment to be successfully ratified by the states.
More interesting, however, in terms of Javits’s argument to his fellow senators, was his open speculation that there was more than there seemed to the discussion at hand. “The most ardent segregationist,” he said, “if he could settle for these two matters, literacy tests and poll taxes, and know that that is all there would be, would probably support these measures himself.” And was that not what was happening? Of the recommendations put forward by the aforementioned Civil Rights Commission, the only two that had received anything like widespread support in Congress were the banning of literacy tests and the banning of poll taxes. Not everyone was in favor of either or both of these measures, to be sure. Southern Democrats in particular offered their share of resistance. But a bill meant to eliminate literacy tests had made it to committee in the Senate. And a proposed amendment eliminating the poll tax had some sixty co-sponsors. How was it, after decades of obfuscation and obstruction, that the segregationists serving in Congress had suddenly decided to give way? Not on everything, mind you; the Commission had made a great number of recommendations, of which the assembled lawmakers had determined to address but a fraction. But even so, agreeing to allow any of the Jim Crow regime to be dismantled by federal fiat was more than a little remarkable. Had the segregationists finally seen the writing on the wall? Had the aforementioned activism of the Warren Court finally forced them to admit that the era of segregation was coming to a close? This may have been all that it was, of course. The segregationists in Congress may simply have realized that they were fighting a losing battle and were moving slowly toward full integration only to salve their wounded pride. But Jacob Javits suspected otherwise.
Without going into all of the reasons the New Yorker might have had to distrust the apparent quiescence of his Southern Democratic colleagues, the fact that Spessard Holland was the principal supporter of the anti-poll tax crusade was arguably cause enough for suspicion. True, Holland had been one of the legislators responsible for seeing Florida’s own poll tax repealed in the late 1930s. And it was also true that he’d pursued a national ban on the same in every session of Congress since he first joined the Senate in the late 1940s. But so much had changed since those deeply troubled days. The United States was no longer in the throes of a devastating economic crisis and its accompanying political realignment. In the late 1930s, it had made perfect sense for a Florida Democrat looking to shore up support for his party while also making a name for himself to support a populist measure like eliminating the poll tax in order to extend the franchise to the increasingly impoverished working classes. It also arguably made sense to carry on this same effort at the federal level in the late 1940s, if for no other reason than to ensure that no veteran returning to an uncertain job market would be forced to swallow disenfranchisement as a reward for their service. But by 1962, the political calculus of American public life had fundamentally shifted. The New Deal Coalition was decidedly fraying, alleviating the plight of the working poor was no longer the national priority it once was, and the events of the 1950s had lent new impetus to the movement for civil rights.
For Spessard Holland, in this altered context, to nonetheless continue seeking a national ban on poll taxes would accordingly have seemed to many an observer to be more than a little inexplicable. The man was, after all, an avowed segregationist. He’d come out vehemently in opposition to Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. He’d signed the Southern Manifesto in 1956. He’d voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. There was no question as to his bona fides as a Southern, states’ rights Democrat. And yet, into the 1960s, he was still pushing for a ban on poll taxes, one of the cornerstones of the Southern Jim Crow regime. Could he not see that the political landscape had shifted under his feet? Did he not understand that in the years since his tenure as a state senator in Florida, the idea of eliminating poll taxes had taken on a liberal reformist connotation? Evidently, he did not, for which reason people on both sides of the issue were given to question his motives. His fellow Southerners, like Richard Russell, thought he’d grown soft on segregation, or else believed that he was foolishly trying to appease those calling for reform. Oddly enough, Senator Javits seemed to agree with the latter assessment. Perhaps Holland was of the opinion that eliminating the poll tax by constitutional amendment would placate the foes of segregation by granting them an impressive enough victory to stave off further demands for reform, both men observed. Russell had defied this impression explicitly when he earlier chided Holland on the subject, of course. Far from quieting down the mounting furor, he said, “the adoption of this amendment would be like feeding a couple of peanuts to a hungry bear: It would only whet his appetite for more [.]” But did all segregationists feel this way? Did some of them – perhaps even most of them – secretly hope that Holland’s effort would succeed, thus staving off further intervention by the federal government into state affairs? Jacob Javits, once again, very much seemed to think so, the fact of which further highlights how strange was the situation at hand. That an anti-poll tax amendment was on the verge of being approved by the Senate in the spring of 1962, given the circumstances, was not all that odd. But that it was being championed by Florida Democrat who otherwise favored segregation? That was odd. Decidedly so.
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