Edwin Washington Project

EWP 1 Senator George 001

Item

Title

EWP 1 Senator George 001

Place

Virginia

Identifier

1000501

Is Version Of

1000501_EWP_Senator_George_001.jpg

Is Part Of

Uncategorized

Date Created

2024-01-07

Format

Jpeg Image

Number

ddb416ffdd764df64712a976c2f57096e6c6f5e4deeda94f7d8a5d3e9020c079

Source

/Volumes/T7 Shield/EWP/Elements/EWP_Files/Access Files/Upload temp/1000501_EWP_Senator_George_001.jpg

Publisher

Digitized by Edwin Washington Project

Rights

Loudoun County Public Schools

Language

English

Replaces

/Volumes/T7 Shield/EWP/Elements/EWP_Files/source/Ingest One/1 Civil Rights/integration_folder/Constitutional_Convention/EWP_Senator_George_001.jpg

extracted text

T

%&V o
FOR RELEASE MONDAY, A, M,, MARCH 12, 1956 /W

Intended to be presented to the Senate by Senator Walter F, George of Georgia,

and in the House of Representatives by Representative Howard W. Smith of
Virginia, at Noon, Monday, March 12, 1956

DECLARATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES

The unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court in the public school

cases is now bearing the fruit always produced when men substitute naked
power for established law.



The Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution of checks and balances
because they realized the inescapable lesson of history that no man or group
of men can be safely entrusted with unlimited power. They framed this Con-
stitution with its provisions for change by amendment in order to secure the
fundamentals of government against the dangers of temporary popular passion
or the personal predilections of public office holders.


















We regard the decision of the Supreme Court in the school cases as a
clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal Judiciary
ux}d‘ertaking to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress, and to
encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people.

The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does
the Fourteenth Amendment nor any other Amendment. The debates preceding
the subrcission of the Fourteenth Amendment clearly show that there was no
intent that it should affect the system~, of education maintained by the States.

The very Congress which proposed the Amendment subsequently pro-
vided for segregated schools in the District of Columbia.

When the Amendment was adopted in 1868, there were 37 States of the
Union. Every one of the 26 States that had any substantial racial differences
among its people either approved the operation of segregated schools already
in existence or subsequently established such schools by action of the same
law-making body which considered the Fourteenth Amendment.

As admitted by the Supreme Court in the public school case {(Brown v.
Board of Fiducation), the doctrine of separate but e
o:iginated in Reberts v. City of Boston, ,



qual schools ''apparently








This constitutional doctrine began rth -- not in the South, and it was
followed not only in Massachusetts, but in Connecticut, New York, Illinois,
Indiana, Michizan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other
northern States until they, exercising their rights as States through the consti-
tutional processes of local self-government, changed their school systems.

In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 the Supreme Court expressly
declared that under the Fourteenth Amendment no person was denied any of
his rights if the States provided separate but equal public facilities. This
decision has been followed in many other cases. It is notable that the Supreme.
Court, speaking through Chief Justice Taft, a former President of the United
States, unanimously declared in 1927 in Lum v. Rice that the Y'separate but
equal' principle is ".,, within the discretion of the State in regulating its
public schools and does not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment. "

L N s R A RS W S R e s G e e R e e Y


Item sets

EWP 01 Civil Rights