Edwin Washington Project

EWP 1 Senator George 002

Item

Title

EWP 1 Senator George 002

Place

Virginia

Identifier

1000502

Is Version Of

1000502_EWP_Senator_George_002.jpg

Is Part Of

Uncategorized

Date Created

2024-01-07

Format

Jpeg Image

Number

d1539ac9ba703b677ee6ac45b38e334616ec1bb035a15bb1ef4f92f32e1c22dd

Source

/Volumes/T7 Shield/EWP/Elements/EWP_Files/Access Files/Upload temp/1000502_EWP_Senator_George_002.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_002.jpg

extracted text

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 governmient 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
undertakwg to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress, and to
eficroach 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 Fducation), the doctrine of separate but equal schools "apparently
_originated in Rcberts v. _City of Boston, .. (1849), ) ‘ ati e
- against attack as being violative of a State constitutional ‘guarar ee of equ 'zty. " :
This constitutional doctrine began in the North -~ not in the South, and it was
followed not only in Massachusetts, but in Connecticut, New York, Illinois,
Indiana, Michigan, 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 Plesgsy v. Ferg\ison 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. v
Court, speaking through Chief Justice Taft, a former President of the United ’
States, unanimously declared in 1927 in Lum v. Rice that the "separate but
equal' principlie is ".,,within the discretion of the State in regulating its 1
public schools and does not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment. " j

This interpretation, restated time and again, became a part of the life
of the people of many of the States and confirmed their habits, customs,

traditions and way of life. Itis founded on elemental humanity and common %
sense, for parents should not be deprived by government of the right to direct
the lives and education of their own children.

Though there has been no constitutional amendment or Act of Congress
changing this established legal principle almost a century old, the Supreme
Court of the United States, with no legal basis for such action, undertook to
exercise their naked judicial power and substituted their personal political
and social ideas for the established law of the land.


Item sets

EWP 01 Civil Rights