By now, it should be exceptionally clear what kind of defence the various segregationist senators were attempting to mount as the discussion concerning Spessard Holland’s proposed anti-poll-tax amendment neared its destined conclusion in the spring of 1962. There was, as aforementioned, no chance that the opponents of the measure could stage a successful filibuster. Holland had already accrued enough co-sponsors to ensure that the proposed amendment would enjoy the requisite two-thirds support once submitted to the floor for a vote. And while Mississippi Senator James Eastland and his cohorts had managed to keep previous versions of Holland’s proposal from being reported out by the Judiciary Committee – and in this instance had likewise seemingly kept the measure bottled up – the tactical assistance of Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield ensured that Holland’s amendment would indeed get a floor vote whether approved by the Judiciary Committee or not. The segregationists, in consequence, were fighting a losing battle. They could not have but known this – they could count as well as anyone – but soldiered on all the same. Perhaps they held out some feeble hope that sufficient delay would allow them to convert just enough of Holland’s co-sponsors to make a difference. Perhaps they counted on their fellow Southern Democrat not going so far as to invoke cloture and effectively slam the door in their faces. Whatever their strategy, their approach was a simple one. All they had to do – all that they could do – was keep talking.
And so they did.
Not just for hours on end, but for days. The Senate session of March 16th
concluded – after memorably witnessing James Eastland compare the proposed
anti-poll-tax amendment with Adolf Hitler’s attempt to “Crush the liberties of
the German people” by first federalizing “the German Government and
[destroying] the powers of the States” – with Mississippi Senator John C.
Stennis (1901-1995) asserting that voting was a privilege granted by the states
rather than a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Senator Holland responded
by asking for a recess until March 19th. By the end of that session,
Stennis had further called the pending joint resolution “a legal monstrosity”
and avowed that voting “Is a privilege, that one must do something to earn”
while Holland had opined that the Framers perhaps knew less about “The problems
of today than do the men who sit now in the Senate and the House of
Representatives.” Other Southern Democrats had joined the chorus of opposition
as well. South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond (1902-2003) gave a disquisition
on the dangers of excessive conformity. Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd
(1887-1966) spoke at length about the socio-economic hardiness of his home
state notwithstanding the existence of a poll tax. But in the end, nothing was
accomplished. Holland would not back down, and neither would his increasingly
long-winded opponents. And so, the speechifying went on through the session of
the 20th. And the 21st. And the 22nd, 23rd, 24th,
and 26th. Was it a filibuster? More or less. It was a filibuster in
everything but name, let us say. A soft filibuster, permitted to go on because
no one was willing to go so far as to invoke cloture even though the parties whose
initiative was being blocked most definitely had the votes to do so.
Of the events
leading up to the final approval of Holland’s aforementioned amendment on March
27th, it will suffice to offer a few excerpts of some of the more
memorable exchanges therein. On the same day – the 21st – that
Virginia Senator Absolom Willis Robertson (1887-1971) declared that it was
incumbent upon the American people to conform to the, “fundamental principles
of ethics, morality, and principles of government that were handed down to us
by our forefathers and which have been tested by time [,]” Georgia Senator
Richard Russell rather memorably avowed that the “cult of conformity” which he
perceived to be behind the efforts of the burgeoning civil rights movement “is
a greater danger than the dread missiles the Soviets are supposed to possess.”
One wonders if the two of them even noticed that their respective arguments
were ostensibly in conflict. And then, of course, there was Texas Senator John
Tower’s warning of what the Holland amendment seemed to him to portend. “We may
think that we could never have a totalitarian system in this country [,]” he
said. “But I point out that Mr. Hitler came to power in a free election. It
could happen here.” On the following day – the 22nd – in the midst
of extended orations on the parts of Southern senators Herman Talmadge
(1913-2002), Allen J. Ellender (1890-1972), John Sparkman (1899-1985), and J.
William Fulbright (1905-1995), New Yorkers Kenneth Keating and Jacob Javits
both pointedly remarked upon the similarity to what the upper chamber was
experiencing of the conventional definition of a filibuster. “A leading
newspaper in New York has stated that a filibuster is building up on the floor
of the Senate [,]” the latter accordingly observed, in which case,
The country ought to understand that
a profound issue is involved, and that if cloture does ensue, there was a
profound reason why cloture did ensue, and why such a move should be sustained,
and why this may be the time to "shoot the cat." If this is the time
chosen by those who oppose civil rights legislation to institute extended
debate or a filibuster, then this is the time to deal with it and this is the
time to end it, if we can.
But Senator
Holland, as mentioned previously, had no interest in invoking cloture. It was
his preference, as the author of the proposed amendment, to simply let its
critics talk until they no longer had anything to say.
And so it was, into the 23rd,
that the show went on. During that day’s session, Arkansas Senator John L.
McClellan (1896-1977) repeated the common refrain of the chamber’s
segregationist wing that even just discussing the issue of the poll tax was,
“beneath the dignity of the Senate” while North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin
(1896-1985) went so far as to declare that, “The statutes which impose the poll
tax as a prerequisite for voting do not disfranchise anyone. The people who
refuse to pay their poll tax disfranchise themselves.” In response to the
latter claim – and doubtless also to the various other monologues which he had
thus far been forced to sit through – Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough then
veritably exploded. A progressive Democrat of the old school, Yarborough had
far more in common ideologically with his Northern counterparts than he did
with his fellow Southerners, and it was arguably only a matter of time before
he had no choice but to vent his spleen. The resulting oration was nothing
short of poetic. “There was a time when voting was considered a privilege [,]”
the Texan began,
It was considered a privilege to
vote," rather than a "right to vote." But that ancient time is
past […] We are now in "the soaring sixties." As man reaches for the
stars in space, so must he reach for the stars on earth: for stars of fairness
and justice and for the dignity of the individual. The time has come to drop
the word "privilege," meaning some governmental granted boon, and to
substitute the word "right," insofar as the franchise is concerned
[…] Now is the time to expand the horizons of American liberty. Now is the time
to remove from the necks, backs, and hands of our fellow citizens the shackles
and yokes of governmental disfranchisement because of economic impoverishment.
Let us strike off the bonds and free their hands, so that they can help write
the people's verdict at the ballot box in the national elections.
To these
righteously indignant words, Yarborough appended two eminently quotable
phrases. “American citizenship [,]” he said, “should not come equipped with an
arbitrary price tag, for it is priceless.” To this bon mot he further added
that, “The way to the American ballot box should be a freeway, not a toll
road.” Clearly, far more than Holland, Yarborough was what the Segregationist
South most feared. Not only was he a progressive Democrat with conviction and
talent to spare, but he was a Southerner who under no circumstances could be
labelled an unknowing carpetbagger.
March 24th, amidst all
the rest, was comparatively uneventful. The Southern segregationists
endeavored to continue holding court, though by this time they had been placed
under a set of speech restrictions by the Majority Leader. On the topic of the
amendment proposed by Spessard Holland, each senator was limited to only two
complete speeches. And during the delivery of said speeches, each senator could
only yield the floor for questions without bringing their oration to a close. The
results were a moderately more focused set of bloviations on the part of the
Holland amendment’s opponents, though digressions were still common in terms of
specific subject matter. For example, in an attempt to dismiss the supposed
urgency of any measure aimed at abolishing the poll tax, J. Lister Hill and
James Eastland ended up engaging in a little byplay whereby they each lamented
both the high levels of crime that then plagued certain neighborhoods of the
nation’s capital and the tragedy that they believed would result from the
federal government becoming involved in any form of national policing. And
during that self-same byplay, they each rather memorably commented upon the
quality of the man who was then the top law enforcement official in the
country. “Is there any man in the United States who can speak with more
intimate knowledge and with greater authority and one in whom people have
greater confidence, than Mr. J. Edgar Hoover?” said Hill. “There is no one in
this country who can speak with a greater knowledge [,]” Eastland agreed. “He
is regarded as absolutely conscientious and sincere, a man in whom the people
have implicit confidence.” In light of what are now known to be the essential
facts of Hoover’s tenure as the Director of the FBI – the illegal wiretapping,
burglaries, blackmail, and harassment campaigns – these statements would appear
to have aged particularly poorly. They were very much in keeping with the
times, of course. Circa 1962, Hoover remained – publicly, at least – the heroic
guardian of American domestic tranquility. But they do rather stand out in the
eyes of the modern observer as hopelessly disconnected from reality.
One might say the same of another
comment made by James Eastland, this time in response to the persistent
inquiries of California Senator Thomas Kuchel (1910-1994). Kuchel, a
Republican, wanted to know if Eastland was aware that the platform of the Democratic
Party going into the Election of 1960 contained a plank which stated that it
was the party’s explicit policy to, “Support whatever action is necessary to
eliminate literacy tests and the payment of poll taxes as requirements for
voting.” When Eastland avowed that he had not read his party’s platform and so
was forced to take Kuchel at his word, Kuchel then asked if Eastland was
inclined to repudiate said platform in light of his own stated position on the
poll tax. To this, the Mississippian gave an unknowingly profound reply. “I
tell the distinguished Senator from California [,]” he said,
That I am a Senator of the United
States, elected by the people of my State to the U.S. Senate; that my first
allegiance is to my country, not to any political party; that no group of
politicians representing special interests, and sitting in a smoke-filled room,
can control my vote as a Senator of the United States; and God knows that if
this country is ever destroyed, it will be destroyed when political conventions
control the votes of Members of Congress. God forbid that such a thing would
ever come about.
While the
“special interests” to which Eastland was referring doubtless included the
likes of the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, one would be hard-pressed to read
his words in 2023 and not immediately think of the myriad of organizations that
presently make it their business to court the favour and support of members of
Congress. Coal companies, oil companies, insurance companies, tobacco
companies; modern Washington is awash in representatives of all of these
concerns, not to mention the various social and political advocacy groups whose
stated goals require them to work closely with public officials. Indeed, it would
seem to be something of a given that all lawmakers necessarily have
relationships with lobbyists and special interests. The lobbyists have the
money, after all, and running for office is notoriously expensive. At the same
time, while it is arguably true that the leadership of the Democratic and
Republican parties now have less control over their membership than was
previously the case, in Eastland’s time there remained strong connections
between party leaders, regional notables, and rank and file public servants
like himself. Did the Democratic National Convention control his vote in
Congress? Not as such, no. But it would have been difficult to deny – in spite
of how effortlessly Eastland did so – that there then existed a good deal of
push and pull between the general membership of the Democratic Party and its
national leadership, particularly as far as the topic of civil rights was
concerned. Eastland may not have felt bound by his party’s official stance on
certain issues, but this surely did not stop him from attempting to shape said
stance, or from using his influence within the Southern wing of the party to
secure concessions from Northern aspirants after the party’s highest nomination
for office. “My first allegiance is to my country,” he said, “not to any
political party [.]” Sour grapes, to be sure. Eastland was as likely to be
loyal to the Democratic Party as he felt that the Democratic Party was inclined
to be loyal to him. As of 1962, the party was officially in favor of civil
rights reform. And so Eastland, correspondingly, was all patriotism and no
partisanship.
The Senate did
not meet again until March 26th, the 25th being a Sunday.
By that point, the chamber had been debating the consideration – not the
measure itself, mind you, but simply the prospect thereof – of Spessard
Holland’s proposed anti-poll-tax amendment for the better part of two weeks.
The chamber’s erstwhile cohort of Southern segregationists were doubtless
elated by this fact, their combined efforts having thus staved off passage of a
measure they roundly opposed in spite of the odds being firmly stacked against
them. The measure’s sponsors, however, were somewhat less than enthused.
Senator Holland, of course, maintained his usual equanimity. But Majority
Leader Mike Mansfield was beginning to lose his patience. The repeated
complaints of the aforementioned Southerners did not help in the slightest. When,
for example, Mississippi Senator John C. Stennis had the audacity to declare
that Holland and his supporters were attempting to “ram through a
constitutional amendment by sheer force of numbers [,]” Mansfield let him have
it. “I point out to Senators that we have been on this matter of taking up a
joint resolution for over 2 weeks,” he declared,
And that, to the best of my knowledge
[…] nowhere will we find two greater bulldozers, perhaps I should say
bulldoggers, on this particular proposition than the Senator from Mississippi
[Mr. STENNIS] and the Senator from Alabama [Mr. HILL]. They have made life not
miserable, but certainly uncomfortable. They have been tenacious, persevering,
and on the floor of the Senate every minute that we have been in session over
the past 2 weeks. I express the hope that we can get to the matter of taking up
Senate Joint Resolution 29, having to do with Alexander Hamilton’s home, very
shortly, because I wish to say that these two Senators are certainly holding my
feet to the fire and I think also the feet of the Senate as a whole.
Given some of what
Stennis and his colleagues had been saying during the aforementioned two-week
interval, this was really a perfectly understandable reaction on the part of
the Majority Leader. In light of the pressures then being faced by the United
States of America, they’d lamented time and time again, it was downright
irresponsible for the Senate to waste time discussing something as trivial as
an electoral qualification that was only recognized in five of fifty states.
But what had these same Southerners done but waste the Senate’s time?
For two weeks – through speech after
speech – a group of Southern Democrats turned what should have been a pro
forma discussion about a constitutional amendment which already had more
than enough support to secure passage into a pseudo-filibuster during which a
legion of court cases, newspaper articles, and other such documents were
laboriously read into the Record. These Southerners traded floor time back and
forth by asking pointless questions of one another, asking and answering to
their own satisfaction while the rest of the Senate was forced to sit, and
watch, and listen. Did these dedicated obstructionists have any real chance of
stopping Holland’s proposed amendment from eventually being approved by the
requisite two-thirds majority? They did not, in fact. But still, they talked,
and talked, and talked, as if their words would make any difference at all. And
these same men, after two weeks of exhaling more hot air than a jet engine, had
the audacity to accuse their opponents of wasting time? It was no wonder that,
by the 26th, Senator Mansfield had grown a bit testy. “I am sure the
Senator understands my position,” he declared accordingly,
As I do his, and I only hope he will
get off my back long enough to allow the Senate, after 2 weeks, I repeat, to
get down to the pending proposal. The Senator from Mississippi has faced up to
his responsibility far more effectively than I had anticipated. It is now the
time, long past, in my opinion, for the Senate to face up to its
responsibility.
In spite of the Majority Leader’s manifest
determination to finally move things along, however, the Southern
obstructionists in the Senate still had a final card to play. It was not a
winning card, of course – as aforementioned, they’d lost before they even begun
their little campaign – but one could nearly admire the sheer boldness of the
attempt. It was the aforementioned Senator Stennis who made the first move. “From
the investigation which the Senator from Mississippi has made,” he said,
And merely taking the information he
has obtained on this question from Senators whose names appear on the
resolution, he is fully satisfied that they did not understand the import or
the origin of the measure when their names were placed on the proposed amendment.
So it seemed that,
far from obstructing the business of the Senate, Stennis and his colleagues
were actually attempting to save their fellow legislators from unknowingly
committing a grievous error. Yes, some sixty-odd senators had agreed to
cosponsor the proposed anti-poll-tax amendment, but many of them clearly did
not know what they were agreeing to. Was it not the height of condescension for
Stennis to suggest that a group of United States senators might have mistakenly
cosponsored a proposed constitutional amendment? Was he not more or less
declaring that these people were too hapless to be taken at their word? Of
course not. He was merely offering them his assistance, as any friend and
colleague would. Knowing each of them as he did, he was sure that they would
not have put their name to such a measure as Holland’s unless they had been
somehow misled into doing so. All that he was doing was helping them to see the
light of truth.
Stennis continued in this vein for
some time, aided in no small part by Louisiana Senator Allen J. Ellender
(1890-1972). Of the supporters of the proposed anti-poll-tax amendment, for
example, the Mississippian went on to say that,
They have not shown that there is
active support for it by the people throughout the Nation. Even though there
has been large support for it here on the floor, there has not been shown an
active interest and support of it by the people by and large. The informed
people, or those who are merely casually informed, just have not been aroused
to give the real support that ordinarily goes with a matter of grave importance
as that of a constitutional amendment.
This would seem to
have been a rather odd thing to say, given the circumstances. As a
constitutional amendment, Holland’s proposal would require the approval of
three-fourths of the state legislatures before it could be considered to have
been ratified. And if, as Stennis avowed, the proposal simply didn’t enjoy “the
real support that ordinarily goes with a matter of grave importance as that of
a constitutional amendment [,]” then there was no chance that this would occur.
So why, then, were Stennis and his Southern colleagues working so hard to
defeat the proposed amendment on the floor of the Senate? If it truly lacked
the “real support” that a constitutional amendment required to gain
ratification, why not let the Senate approve the measure and leave it to its
inevitable defeat in the states? The answer, to put it bluntly, is that Stennis
was not being entirely truthful. In fact, he did not know what kind of support
the proposed anti-poll-tax amendment enjoyed among the American people. That,
or he did know, and desired to mislead certain of his fellow senators. Doubtless
he hoped that enough of the measure’s sixty-odd cosponsors could be convinced
that the public was not behind their efforts so as to render it a dead letter
in the event that it reached the floor for a vote. A crude method, to be sure –
what senator, in their right mind, would publicly back a proposed
constitutional amendment without first taking the temperature of their
constituents? – but hardly inexplicable.
Ellender sought to second Stennis’s
assertion by making a rather curious claim of his own. “There is no doubt about
that,” he first avowed, in specific reference to the Mississippian’s statement
cited above. “Notwithstanding that fact,” he then continued, “there are people
in politics who wish to make a little hay while the sun shines, so that they
can get the folks back home stirred up, so that they will vote for them.”
Again, there was nothing particularly illogical in what Ellender was trying to
accomplish. The only real hope that he and his Southern colleagues had to
defeat the proposed anti-poll tax amendment was to detach as many co-sponsors
as possible from the measure before it came to the floor for a vote. And if it
took making certain of his fellow senators feel self-conscious by intimating
that they were acting out of a desire to “whip up” public sentiment for the
purpose of shoring up their own popularity rather than responding to popular
pressure, Ellender was certainly not going to stay his hand. It was just that,
coming from a white Southerner, it was a strange thing indeed to be accused of
indulging in demagoguery. Since the end of the Civil War in 1865, the Southern
wing of the Democratic Party had done little else but engage in a campaign of
vile and persistent race-baiting, all for the purpose of first regaining and
then reaffirming their accustomed monopoly on political power. Granted, at
times Southern Democrats were as much representing popular opinion as they were
actively seeking to shape it. But as the rise and fall of “fusion politics” in
the late 19th-century South would seem to make clear – during which
Southern Democrats successfully executed a series of propaganda campaigns aimed
at driving apart the coalition of poor Black and poor white voters who had
succeeded, in some states, in upending the partisan status quo – they were
perfectly willing and able to defy public sentiment when it suited them.
Finally, in response to this rather
hypocritical accusation on the part of Ellender, Stennis then chimed in with
one last bit of dubious wisdom. “Is not that the basic reason why the
Constitution,” he remarked to his colleague from Louisiana, “certainly in
spirit as well as in fact, is a compact and, except under the most extreme
conditions, politically sacred ground, so to speak, and should not be
disturbed?” It was a rhetorical question, to be sure; a statement ending in a
question mark. It was also patently and exceedingly untrue. While the
Constitution absolutely represents the primary legal authority within the
entire American system of government, to call it “politically sacred ground”
would seem to be a tad hyperbolic. Not only had the Framers seen fit to include
an amending formula along with the original text of the same, but said formula
had thereafter been invoked fully twenty-three times as of 1963. The last two instances
had even taken place within Stennis’s own term of service in the Senate. Granted,
amending the Constitution was not an easy thing to do, as had been made
abundantly clear to Spessard Holland over the course of his own career in Congress.
But nor was it something that lawmakers shuddered to even contemplate. It was
simply another tool in the legislator’s toolbox, and one which they employed as
the situation seemed to demand. Bearing this in mind, Stennis’s further claim that
the Constitution was not to be disturbed “except under the most extreme
conditions” would likewise appear to be something of an exaggeration. The
Reconstruction Amendments, as aforementioned, were certainly the product of dire
circumstances, but one could hardly say the same of the 16th, 18th,
or 20th Amendments. “Extreme conditions” did not prompt Congress and
the states to ban the sale of alcohol or lay term limits upon the office of
President. Rather, the relevant amendments resulted from public pressure campaigns
and basic political calculus. For Stennis to avow that only a crisis could give
rise to an amendment was accordingly more than a little disingenuous. He had
seen for himself that this was not the case.
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