We at WR hope your Fourth has been great so far, and that the evening will hold similar promise. In commemoration of the Declaration, here is our annual reprinting of the text, in its entirety. We also raise a glass to Founder, inventor and sybarite Benjamin Franklin, who said, “We must hang together, gentlemen, else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.”
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it; and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the Lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.
Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. —
WE, THEREFORE, the REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.—And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Signed by ORDER and in BEHALF of the CONGRESS,
John Hancock, President
Charles Thomson, Secretary
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Matthew Thornton
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll
With the recent hullaballoo over U.S. Rep. Charlie Rangel‘s ethical troubles, we were reminded of the person he beat in the Democratic primary for the seat in 1970 — Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Like a lot of people, we lament the passing of an era when if people did things they shouldn’t, they went big and were unapologetic. This is a damn good story. Enjoy.
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was perhaps the epitome of wealth, power, and ego — a modern Narcissus. Powell’s charisma propelled him to represent Harlem in New York’s 18th Congressional District in 1944, and holding the seat until his ouster by Charles Rangel in 1970. Contributing to Powell’s downfall was the scandal that centered on the case, Powell v. McCormack. The central issue in Powell was that the 90th Congress sought to exclude Powell — that is, to expel him before seating him. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court found for Powell, stating that Congress has to seat all of its duly elected and constitutionally qualified members before voting to expel one of its members. However, the story is not with the bare facts. One must answer several questions. First, what events could have precipitated such an action? Second, how could have over two-thirds of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to refuse to seat one of its most senior and most powerful members? Third, what did the Supreme Court think of the proceedings, what did they decide, who dissented and why?
Powell was seemingly in scandal from the first day he appeared on the House floor. From openly breaking with his party and supporting Dwight Eisenhower for president in 1956, to his three botched marriages, to his globe-trotting and behind-the-scenes chicanery. Many congressmen sincerely despised Powell, yet were overcome by his personality when one-on-one with him. Southern congressmen especially resented how Powell would take his committee into investigating the backcountry of Alabama and Louisiana; indeed, into the congressmen’s own staffs. They also resented Powell’s trappings of luxury, his Jaguar convertible that was so conspicuous in the Capitol garage. Powell was notorious for his proclivities with women. He caught the wrath of S.C. congressman Mendel Rivers when Rivers found his wife and Powell having a jovial time together at a Washington social event. By the time Powell v. McCormack rolled around, Powell had his third wife in de facto exile in Puerto Rico while traveling and cavorting publicly with Corinne Huff, one of his staffers. Powell was also developing into the very definition of a loose cannon. According to Max Rabb, a member of the Eisenhower administration, Powell “…was a power. You knew he was there…. You couldn’t control Adam Clayton Powell.” Powell himself and his contemporaries both credit him with much of the civil rights, desegregation and antipoverty legislation that came out of the Congress. Indeed, the War on Poverty itself. Considering these facts, there would not be surprise in the situation that Powell found himself in 1966, with an enemy lurking behind every desk in the House. One could begin at the beginning with Powell’s actions and notoriety and the resentment by the press and public, but we will begin with the Esther James scandal.
Esther James was a grandmotherly Harlem woman, but to make ends meet after her husband died in the ‘50s, she took to handling the money for neighborhood gamblers. In a 1960 speech, Powell claimed that James was a “bag woman” taking cash from gamblers to pay off the police. James soon thereafter sued for libel. Powell never could fit the trial into his schedule, and after several continuances, the court finally convened and rendered a $211,500 judgment against Powell. One of the jurors stated that the jury ruled for James on the basis “…nobody has a right to shoot off his mouth that way, especially a member of Congress….” This was not the end of the case, however. Powell made every effort to evade payment. He stayed out of New York every day except Sunday in order to avoid being served with a civil contempt warrant, spending much of his time with his third wife in Puerto Rico. After being served with a criminal contempt warrant, Powell tried to enlist the President Lyndon Johnson and the Justice Department to try to defend him, to no avail. By this time, the date was 1965, and Powell began to use the argument that he was in trouble because of some sort of racist establishment police conspiracy against him because of his anticorruption efforts. In November of 1966, Powell was ordered to either work out a payment arrangement with James or be incarcerated. Powell’s attorneys worked out a deal with James, and the event was settled. The press did not particularly approve, since James would be 121 years old by the time the debt would be paid off.
Instigated by the protracted James ordeal, during the fall of 1966 rumors were floating around the Capitol about a coup in the House Education and Labor Committee, which Powell chaired. Indeed, people began to go around Powell by taking their concerns to the party leadership and the White House, sensing that Powell was losing control of his committee. Powell’s loss of power was almost entirely his own fault. He rarely tried to keep his appointments with the committee. Often, people felt Powell was too distracted and busy with the business of being Adam Powell to pay attention to the creation and passage of legislation. Powell’s prejudices may have also affected his plight. In his autobiography, Powell asserts that,
A white Northerner is one who says openly that he has no prejudice and yet who practices it every day of his life. The white Southerner is the one who says, “I am prejudiced, but I have certain friends [not just Uncle Tom friends] I would do anything in the world for.” In other words, one is a hypocrite and one is bluntly honest.
Powell loved to mispronounce the name of a Northerner on his committee, saying the Indiana congressman’s name as Braydemas, not Brademas, as the name is supposed to be pronounced. This small attack incensed U.S. Rep. John Brademas, and caused him to be one of the leaders of the coup against Powell, in which he was joined by two other Northerners, Frank Thompson of New Jersey and Jim O’Hara of Michigan. Powell was shocked. He thought he has treated his “…committee with more fairness and justice than any other chairman of the House or Senate.” Regardless, U.S. Rep. Sam Gibbons, a Florida Dixiecrat, submitted the committee reorganization proposal, and it passed 27-1. Powell seemed to think that he was being attacked for being a black man with power. That detail may have been part of the reason his fellow congressmen pounced on him with such fervor, but not the entire reason.
A week after the committee reorganization vote, a special subcommittee was formed to look into Powell’s use of committee funds for staff and travel. There also seemed to be evidence of Powell’s estranged third wife being on the payroll. Ironically, U.S. Rep. Wayne Hays of Ohio was named to the committee. At the time, Hays was believed to have taken a House dining room headwaiter on a taxpayer-financed jaunt to Paris. Powell had once seen Hayes in a risqué Paris nightclub. Furthering the irony, Hays was later expelled from Congress a little more than a decade later for having a mistress on the House payroll.
The Hays committee discovered that many airline tickets that had been taken out in the names of staffers had, in fact, been used by Powell and Huff on trips to places like Puerto Rico, Miami and the British island of Bimini, 60 miles off the Florida coast. In addition, evidence surfaced that Powell used committee funds to pay for a maid for a three-week vacation to Bimini. Moreover, there was a strange circumstance with Powell’s wife’s payroll checks from the committee. The checks were sent to Powell’s office, endorsed in his name and deposited in his account. Powell, however, explained that his finances were administered by Maxine Dargans, and that she had endorsed the checks and placed the money into a joint account held by both Powell and his third wife. Powell goes on to insinuate that Dargans was bought off by the Hays committee. When Powell’s third wife, Yvette, came to testify before the committee, she said that she had not given consent for anyone to endorse the checks and that she had not heard from Powell in over a year. Powell asserted that she had been bought, as well.
The Hays committee reported what had been suspected, that there was strong evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Powell, and asked for an inquiry by the Justice Department. Speaker of the House John McCormack sought to stop the bloodletting, though, and tried to get Powell to return from Bimini to Washington and retake political control of his position. In spite of efforts from such notables as A. Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin to convince Powell to return to the Capitol, Powell saw it fit to stay on Bimini and snipe. When the House Democratic Caucus met on Jan. 9 of 1967, it installed U.S. Rep. Carl Perkins as the new chair of House Education and Labor. Powell retaliated by public statements that there was a campaign of racial bigotry afoot and a double standard in the Congress for black and white congressmen. This statement may have, indeed, been true, but bigotry was not the reason Powell was removed from his committee chairmanship. In a conversation with Johnson advisor Henry Wilson, Powell remarked that his present position was a “dark plot” among three Mormon representatives, including the Udalls, Stewart and Mo.
A stir, but not major action, occurred among blacks in the civil rights movement and the entertainment community. Floyd McKissick and Rustin came to Powell’s aid, as did Dick Gregory and Sammy Davis Jr. Rangel, then a young Harlem politico, also helped by organizing a rally for Powell at the Capitol.
The day following the Caucus vote, the House voted by more than 80 percent to not seat Powell until a committee decided if Powell was fit to serve or not, in light of the New York court actions and the evidence of misappropriation of committee funds. McCormack then appointed the select committee, which included such notables as U.S. Reps. Emanuel Celler, Claude Pepper and John Conyers. Legal machinations were already beginning. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the committee detailing the unconstitutionality of refusing to seat Powell, and Powell himself was already assembling a crack legal team of perhaps the best eight antiestablishment attorneys in the nation. The report of the committee was uncertain; the initial sentiment was split down party lines, with the Democratic majority in favor of Powell. Powell maintained that as long as he fit the constitutional requirements — age, citizenship, and residence, he should be seated. The committee was not so sure. The Hays report was factored in, as well as Yvette Powell’s testimony, the “bag woman” deliberations and every questionable action Powell took since assuming his chairmanship in 1961.
Powell reacted to the House’s action in what had become typical behavior from the distinguished congressman. Immediately preceding the House vote to not seat him, Powell harangued the congressmen on the House floor that he knew of no congressman that did not have a few skeletons in his closet, insinuating that he was being singled out for reasons other than those mentioned by the House. Powell continued to assert that he was being attacked because as a friend of his said, “…[Powell] is a Negro and wields power like a white man wields power.” Using this method of defense he attempted to rally civil rights leaders and other activists to his cause. However, even those like Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King, Julian Bond, and U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy could not exert enough influence in Congress to effect any change in the House’s chosen path.
Many on the select committee feared making a martyr of Powell by expelling him, so on the first day of March, 1967, the committee recommended that Powell be seated, censured, stripped of his seniority and fined $40,000. The committee members felt a lack of rules about such situations, and the need to make up the rules as they went along, but they seemed satisfied with the report. During debate on the committee decision, Powell was in Bimini, and the congressmen present were trying to decide what, constitutionally, they could do to reprimand their colleague. There were not many people present who were sure about which course of action was the best and most legal. Holland claimed that Powell was a victim of latent racism in the House, but the overwhelming cry came from Republicans and Southern Democrats who claimed that Powell was guilty, arrogant and irresponsible, among other personal defects. After four hours of debate, the committee report was defeated and U.S. Rep. Tom Curtis of Missouri’s resolution to exclude Powell from the 90th Congress was passed by an overwhelming majority. One week later, Powell filed suit against the Speaker, sergeant at arms, clerk, doorkeeper and certain members of the House.
A month later, a special election was held to fill the vacancy in Powell’s seat. The Republicans tried to get every sort of famous black conservative to run. Baseball player Jackie Robinson and jazz musician Lionel Hampton’s names were bandied about, but James Meredith, who had integrated Ole Miss, was the person to announce his candidacy. However, soon after he retracted and a relative nobody was put against Powell, who had decided to run for reelection. Powell won, 86-12 with a third-party candidate splitting the difference. However, Powell waited to present his certificate of election to House, stalling to see what the courts would decide.
Initially, the district court ruled against Powell, and he sought immediate appeal to the Supreme Court, which was denied. Powell went to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where he was rebuffed by future Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, before he was allowed to appear before the Supreme Court. Powell contended that the Speaker denied him the oath, the clerk refused him duties due to a representative, the sergeant at arms refused to pay him and the doorkeeper refused him access to the House floor. However, Powell had to win another election before the Court granted certiorari on November 18, 1968. He did, and went into court with a peoples’ mandate. During the layover between certiorari and the oral arguments in April of 1969, Powell was seated in the 91st Congress as a freshman and with a $25,000 fine.
As a result, the Court had to deal with not only with the constitutionality of exclusion, but whether the case was moot or not in light of the actions of the 91st Congress. The Court also considered the charges of racism. In the oral arguments, Justice Hugo Black asked Bruce Bromley, attorney for the appellees, whether the House excluded Powell because he was black. Bromley gave an unequivocal denial. Chief Justice Earl Warren also had suspicions about whether the House’s exclusion of Powell was completely without racist overtones. The attorneys in the room had the distinct impression that the Court was focusing more than expected on race and was leaning towards Powell.
On June 16, the Supreme Court ruled 7-1 against the House, with Warren’s majority opinion stating that the House had exhibited a dangerous misuse of its powers. The Court decided that the House must seat all of its members if they meet the constitutional requirements and only then seek an expulsion resolution. However, the exclusion path that the House followed was patently unconstitutional. Warren was particularly upset about the fact that the House believed it had supreme authority over treatment of its members. Warren therefore took pains to point out that the Supreme Court is “the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution.” The Court dismissed the claims against the congressmen mentioned in the suit and also dismissed the back-pay argument, and therefore cut away the entire scandalous back-story with Powell and the House. It was for this reason that mootness was not considered, since the parts of the case pertaining to mootness were thrown out. This action left the Court able to openly reprimand the House for abuse of power, which the Court seemed to gladly do. The only justice to dissent was Potter Stewart, who asserted, simply, that the 90th Congress had ended, Powell had been seated by the 91st Congress, and the matter was moot.
The House did not take kindly to their legal spanking, and U.S. Rep. Gerald Ford first asserted that the House would not abide by the judgment, soon thereafter seeking a Justice Department investigation of Powell. Still, the case had been decided and the House had its wings clipped by a watchful judiciary, providing a case study in the balance of powers and the checks and balances system. The legacy of Powell can be seen in what instances the case has been cited. Perhaps the best time Powell was cited was in United States v. Nixon, where the Court made the point that sometimes the Court has to look beyond the “names that symbolize the parties to determine whether a justiciable case or controversy is presented.”
Some people in the South Carolina political discussion are so ignorant as to come up with polemics whenever government spends one dollar of taxpayer money. However, we believe that certain things that don’t immediately deliver a return on investment are worth investing in. Consider among those the Palmetto State’s historic sites.
In the South, the past is never really past. We love our history. We love our ancestors. We don’t necessarily like the government putting its hand in what’s happening, but corporations aren’t exactly lining up to thoroughly bankroll historic sites. That’s where the government comes in.
Right now, money for work at the Fort Moultrie visitors’ center on Sullivan’s Island is being held up by U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky. The former pitcher for the Detroit Tigers has hurled a wild pitch. The whole idea is under some misbegotten concept of fiscal responsibility.
The action comes as a result of Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning’s decision to block key legislation that would have extended several critical priorities for middle class families. That legislation covered tax credits for COBRA health coverage, unemployment insurance for 400,000 people, as well as the short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund. The Fund supports all surface transportation programs for the nation -– highways, bridges, transit and safety inspections, as well as efforts to encourage seat belt use and to fight distracted and impaired driving.
“As American families are struggling in tough economic times, I am keenly disappointed that political games are putting a stop to important construction projects around the country,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “This means that construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed.”
Let’s put this out there, though. Would the Sons of the American Revolution endorse this action? Would the Sons of Confederate Veterans? It’s a fairly good assumption that most members of both fraternal organizations. despite their conservative ideological beliefs, would be against it. That’s because preserving our nation’s history, and making it available to the American public, is one of the things that the Federal government should be doing.
It’s just a shame that it took a post by the S.C. New Democrats on Indigo Journal to bring this to our attention. This is not an ideological or a partisan issue. We’re desperately seeking S.C. Republicans that will take up the banner for our state’s historical sites.
The recent fetish with the Founders by tea partiers has us thinking about this post we put up in May of 2009. The “Mount Vernon Statement,” yet another part of this, goes into a blind contemplation of what went down between 1776 and 1788.
We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.
[...]
The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
In filing his lawsuit against the State of South Carolina, Gov. Mark Sanford name-dropped the Founding Fathers, something every politician, and those in the periphery, have a duty to do at least several dozen times a year. Here’s the problem: the Founders weren’t deities, they were men.
If the Governor wants to play up the separation of powers argument to prevent needed money to get to schools and to keep South Carolinians safe, then that’s his prerogative. But including the Founders as a buttress to what he is saying is one of the most ridiculous rhetorical maneuvers in American politics. The intention of the name-drop is, “If the Founders wrote it, it must be great.”
Sure, about 75-to-80 percent of what ended up in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was brilliant, on a level never seen before and rarely again. But, one has to realize some facts.
The Founders were all privileged white men. They owned a good bit of land. A solid number of them owned slaves. Hence, who could vote for George Washington? White men who owned 20 acres of land. Women, free blacks, lower-class whites? Yeah, not so much. But, hey, it’s not all bad. If you were a slave, you counted as three-fifths of a person, though under law you were still as much of a piece of property as the overseer’s whip.
Hence, it took until the 1820s for all white men to be able to vote, a Civil War and Constitutional amendments to abolish slavery and give black men the right to vote (though, in practice, that took another 100 years) and about 144 years after independence for women to gain the franchise.
If you wanted to vote for your U.S. senator, good luck being elected to the state legislature. It wasn’t until the 20th Century that senators were elected by popular vote. Also, if it weren’t for a bunch of crazy people worried about civil liberties, we wouldn’t have gotten the Bill of Rights.
And, sweet heavens, this is just the beginning. So, next time you hear something about “original intents” or what the Founders wanted, keep in mind what was the original intent. Political history, like current events, is never in the bichromatic, simplistic way some would like it.
As we have often said, Southern public school districts have issues because of integration. White people with money didn’t want their taxdollars going to pay for black children to get educated. This is the main reason many Southern school districts aren’t adequately funded. And now wealthy white people are exploiting the situation to further rip public schools.
But, hey, we aren’t the only ones to come to this conclusion.
There have been plenty of mentions during the impeachment process of Gov. Mark Sanford about an impeachment in 1877. The year struck us as meaningful, since it was when the old guard of South Carolina retook the government from the Federal occupying forces and the “Radical Republicans.” Former Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton III was inaugurated as governor, and a push began to throw out everyone elected or appointed during Reconstruction.
One of those under the gun was S.C. Supreme Court Asst. Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright. He was originally from Pennsylvania, and arrived in the Palmetto State after the Civil War to set up schools for freed slaves. After a brief return to Pennsylvania, he came back and became one of the first blacks to be admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1868. That year, he was elected to the Senate, representing Beaufort, and two years later was elected by his fellow legislators to the Supreme Court.
The 1876 gubernatorial race, though, proved to hasten his downfall. The race between Hampton and former Union 2nd Lt. Daniel Chamberlain was beset by voter fraud and violence, much of it perpetrated by a paramilitary organization known as the Red Shirts. These men were former Confederate soldiers who took up arms to reassert the old ways. One of their typical activities was shooting into and disrupting election rallies of the blacks and few moderate whites who were supporting the Republican ticket.
The decision about the winner went to the Court, and Wright and fellow Justice A.J. Willard voted in favor of Hampton. A while after, Wright tried to reverse his opinion, but it was too late. That drew the ire of Democrats who had flooded into office, and rumors ran around town that he was a drunk and susceptible to bribery. The House put together a set of impeachment charges and that spelled the end of Wright’s term on the Court. He knew his days were numbered, so he resigned and went on to private practice until his death in 1885. Wright’s also known for setting up a law department at Claflin University after leaving office.
We like The Herald-Journal. It has some of the best political reporters in the state, and the crime blotter is in the Top 3, along with the Free Times and the Charleston City Paper.
However, the op-eds leave something to be desired. Take, for instance, the Sunday column by Lane Filler titled, “Very proud to be living in South Carolina.” Filler seemed to be upset by regular emails from his sister that link to New York Times stories and asking, in effect, what the hell is going on in the Palmetto State.
When news of Gov. Mark Sanford’s tango in paradise broke, she started sending me e-mails with links to the New York Times stories. Apparently she imagined we were too busy with a huge moonshine feature and a special food section titled “Ku Klux Klan Wives Share Their Favorite Recipes” to catch on to the Sanford buzz.
Each e-mail essentially read “What is wrong with freakin’ South Carolina?”
She was sending these communications from New York, where Gov. Eliot Spitzer had to resign after his assignations with hookers were revealed, and his replacement, Gov. David Paterson, announced he and his wife were both adulterers so quickly that it was practically part of his oath of office.
With all due respect, South Carolina was the state that gave the finger to the doctrine of federalism to the point where President Andrew Jackson was ready to send in the army. Then there was the infamous caning incident. Not to mention governor and then U.S. Sen. Ben Tillman saying on the Senate floor that blacks who wanted to be involved in politics deserved to be shot (Tillman also beat up his fellow S.C. senator), U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond leading the longest filibuster in American history over a civil rights bill, and, oh yeah, secession.
Hey, we’ve lived in the South all our lives. Hell, we’re from a town that’s known less for steel (its calling card) and more for Bull Connor, fire hoses and bombings. That doesn’t mean we’re not hometown proud. At one point, we lived in Texas, and that was too far away from the Deep South to be comfortable.
Each Southern state has its share of corrupt officials and absurd political scandals. It comes with the territory. But, for a columnist at a paper owned by the New York Times Company to slag the Times is a little funny. Beyond that, it’s one thing to be proud of where you’re from. Our family spent its nearly 300 years in America between South Carolina and Alabama. Love them both. To defend the nuttiness that happens is quite another kettle of fish.
Certainly, part of the reaction is part of the “He can’t do that to our pledges — only we can do that to our pledges” meme, along with the knee-jerk irritation of Yankees commenting on our state. Still, it’s silly to go into a “I know you are, but what am I” discussion when said state becomes a national joke for about three months.
Slate‘s irregular indulgence in graphic design and whimsy known as “Barack Obama’s Facebook Feed” is one of the best parts of the weekend. The online magazine’s Christopher Beam and Chris Wilson manage to distill recent political happenings into a hysterical political satire in the style of your average Facebook news feed, without all the posts about FarmVille and Mafia Wars.
The entry from Aug. 21 was another out-of-the-park effort, including bits like the jokes on the continuing misadventures of Vice President Joe Biden.
Of course, the health care debate figured prominently, since President Barack Obama seems hell-bent on recreating former President Bill Clinton‘s first term. Even U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint‘s tweets came in for a feature.
In case that was too Dennis Miller-esque for you, the Siege of Petropavlovsk (which you should never have heard of) occurred in the Pacific theater of the Crimean War in the 1850s. That naval and land battle was a smashing victory for the Russians, who inflicted five times as many casualties as they received against the British and the French. It was also full of gray areas: when his ship opened up its cannons on the town, British Admiral David Price shot himself. And, a while after repulsing the allied forces, the Russians ended up evacuating the garrison at Petropavlovsk during the winter. This has been your obscure history lesson for the day.
So, yeah — Slate‘s got jokes.
We usually don’t trust national people who peek into S.C. politics and pick heroes and villains. South Carolina is an insular state with a political culture that is more mobster-like and incestuous than most could imagine.
So, our eyes practically sprained themselves while rolling in response to RedState‘s Erick Erickson‘s (what, was John Johnson taken?) lovefest over Rep. Nikki Haley‘s run for governor. It’s not unlike the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page’s journalistic fellatio of Gov. Mark Sanford, despite what we all know here that he’s an empty suit and owned by special interests.
It was fairly absurd:
And Nikki Haley puts her votes where her mouth is. Republicans in South Carolina punished her for daring to push for fiscal restraint and transparency in the state legislature by yanking a prime committee position in the State House, but she kept on pushing till she won. She got her start in state politics by challenging and beating the longest serving state representative in South Carolina — and she did it in a Republican primary.
Nikki Haley is not afraid to challenge the establishment Republican Party. She is not afraid to set standards for the party and expect those around her, and herself, to live up to them.
Let me be blunt: if conservatives and libertarians cannot unite behind Nikki Haley and get her onto the national stage as a fresh face for both Republicans and small government, we might as well call it day.
The GOP needs Nikki Haley in the South Carolina Governor’s Mansion. The grand coalition that last put the GOP in power needs someone of Nikki Haley’s integrity and spine to get us back both on the path of small government and back into a position to lead the nation. Nikki Haley.
Oh, that is funny. Let’s run this scenario (again, yawn) — the Big Three were already known, hiring staff and fundraising before Haley even came close to announcing. To win, she’d have to beat two of the three in the primary to make it into the runoff. Can a third-term state representative from Lexington manage to raise enough money and get more earned media and turn out their supporters better than a sitting congressman, lieutenant governor and attorney general?
The only way she had a chance was if Sanford’s base and shell groups were organized, united and behind her. It’s not. It, because the people behind it are smart and smart with their money, have split between the Big Three. They’re trying to back a winner.
Then there’s her given name, which cuts both ways. Niche Indian diaspora sites have been running her full name as a tribute to Indian immigrant success (her parents came over, settled here and built a successful business). Now, there’s some concern in state GOP circles if “Nimrata Nikki Kaur Randhawa Haley” is barnstorming through rural towns instead of Nikki Haley, suburban wife, mother, accountant and state legislator.
It’s not something we want to see — watching racism in the South isn’t something that makes us feel good. But, everyone knows what happened to U.S. Sen. John McCain‘s adopted daughter in the 2000 primary. It’s also to be expected.
Of course, there’s also an upside. She’s currently trying to tap her friends and family fundraising base, many of whom only know her as Nikki Randhawa. So there’s that.
But, there’s reason to worry about an ignorant backlash. In 1998, Democratic operatives were worried that Inez Tenenbaum wouldn’t get traction because her name would be considered too Jewish. Sen. Greg Ryberg, a Catholic, also ran into that. We don’t quite know what differentiates a German name or Eastern European name from a Jewish name. For instance, we’re following a Wolfe on Twitter that’s a rabbi.
It will be interesting to see how this all goes down.
It’s been a while since we could predict that Alabama would be good season-in and season-out (like, say, 1989-1996), so we’re getting ready for the 2009 season by getting hyped with the best highlight videos from last season’s 12-0 regular season campaign.
For those of you who don’t understand what it’s like to expect excellence from your favorite football team every year, we feel bad for you, son. Actually, no, not really. Expecting mediocrity would be much easier than having to deal with the the letdowns of the past decade of Crimson Tide football (you have it easy, South Carolina). But, we’re pretty excited and can’t wait to see Bama wipe out another ACC team in the Georgia Dome.
We have posts on Rep. Nikki Haley and Supt. of Ed. Jim Rex in the works. Really. But with 19 hours of solid work and only a two-hour nap in between, we need some football therapy.
