Voting Rights and Legal Wrongs. A Commentary on S. 1564, the proposed "Voting Rights Act of 1965..."
This booklet was distributed by the Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government (VCCG) in opposition to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Commission began in 1958 and existed until the late 1960s. <br /><br />Led by David J. Mays, a prominent lawyer and advisor to Virginia’s commission on the response to the Brown v. Board of Education decision, it advocated nationally for states’ rights and conservatism, and eventually distributed over 2 million published pamphlets, brochures and speeches.<br /><br />Excerpts: <br /><br />FOREWORD<br /><br />During the first eight weeks of 1965, demonstrations of increasing size and intensity in Selma, Ala., and later in Montgomery, attracted nationwide attention to the efforts of Alabama Negroes to secure their right to vote. The demonstrations reached a political climax on the evening of March 15, when the President asked a joint session of the Congress for the immediate adoption of a "Voting Rights Act of 1965." Remarkably, members of the United States Supreme Court, in their judical robes, sat in the front row applauding. <br /><br />Three days later, on March 18, identical bills were introduced in the House (HR 6400) and in the Senate (S. 1564) to carry out the President's recommendations. <br /><br />The Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government believes fervently in the right to vote....At the same time, the Commission adheres just as fervently to a conviction that the power to fix qualifications for voting, uniformly applied to all persons, is a power plainly reserved to the States under Article I of the Constitution.... <br /><br />The proposed "Voting Rights Act of 1965," in the Commission's view, transcends the authority vested in Congress. Its key provisions are triggered not by discrimination on account of race or color, but by arbitrarily defined statistical phenomena....<br /><br />In our view, the President is proposing to deal unconstitutionally with unconstitutional acts, thus piling a large subversion on a small one. He is proposing to go far beyond the limits of discrimination "on account of" race or color, in order to spread upon the statute books a harsh and punitive measure of general application, more drastic than any voting legislation proposed since Reconstruction days. The bill would grievously undermine our federal system; it would open the door to the obliteration of all State powers in the field of State and local elections.<br /><br />We do not oppose the President's aim. Surely the indefensible conditions that provoked the Alabama demonstrations must be remedied. But we are convinced the job can be done by a carefully drawn bill, strictly confined to denials and abridgments by reason of race or color. Such a bill would have this Commission's support...."<br /><br />James J. Kilpatrick, Chairman, Committee on Publications<br />Richmond, April, 1965.<br /> <br /><br /><a href="https://images.socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/items/browse?tags=Virginia+Commission+on+Constitutional+Government" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Other VCCG publications">Other VCCG publications</a> in the Image Portal
<a href="http://librarycatalog.virginiahistory.org/final/Portal/Default.aspx?component=AAAAIY&amp;record=76257a97-9be4-4971-b1b5-351eec5dcce9" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Search for this item in the Library Catalog">General collection, Call Number JK1861.V82 V6</a>, Library of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Virginia Historical Society
NO COPYRIGHT – UNITED STATES <br /><br />The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. <br /><br /><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="RightsStatements.org">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/</a> <br /><br />Acknowledgement of the Virginia Historical Society as a source is requested.
Learn more: <br /><br /><a href="https://images.socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/exhibits/show/controlling-the-vote/gallery" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Discovery Set: Controlling the Vote">Controlling the Vote -- Rights. Registration. Representation.</a> Social Welfare History Image Portal<br /><a href="https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/uncategorized/voting-rights-act-of-1965/" target="_blank" title="Introduction to the Voting Rights Act" rel="noreferrer noopener">Voting Rights Act of 1965. An Introduction</a>. <em>Social Welfare History Project </em> <br /><br />Hayter, J. M. (2017). <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1p0vjw7" target="_blank" title="The Dream is lost." rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>The dream is lost. Voting rights and the politics of race in Richmond, Virginia</em>.</a> Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky <br /><br />Moeser, J. V. & Dennis, R. M. (2020). <a href="https://doi.org/10.21974/02y5-eq41" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Open Access edition 2020"><em>The politics of annexation. Oligarchic power in a southern city.</em></a> Open Access Edition. Digital publisher: VCU Libraries. Original (1982) edition Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company <br /><br />Hershman, J. H. Jr. <a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Massive_Resistance" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Massive Resistance">Massive Resistance</a>. (2011, June 29). <em>Encyclopedia Virginia</em>
Voting Rights Act...the first months
Within the first six weeks after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, staff attorneys from the Commission on Civil Rights visited 32 Southern counties and parishes to study the implementation of the legislation. This document is their report, transmitted to the President, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives in November 1965. <br /><br />The Commission found widespread compliance, but also a need for further action. Their "Findings and Recommendations," along with the section titled, "Problems in Registration" are presented here. <br /><br />Read the report's <a href="https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/item/p16022coll391:4298/p16022coll391:4185?child_index=9&query=&sidebar_page=4" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="read the report's history of the Voting Rights Act of 1965">Chapter 1: History of the Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>. <br /><br />Excerpts: <br />p.34 Problems in Registration<br /><br />Some country registrars in Mississippi and Alabama have violated the new law by refusing to register illiterates....<br /><br />Delay has created a problem in Alabama and South Carolina, principally because these States have a restricted number of registration days. <br /><br />p. 35 In some counties in North Carolina, registrars conduct all but three days of registration in their own homes or places of business. Social and psychological barriers are likely to deter Negroes from seeking out a registrar in his exclusively white neighborhood.... <br /><br />Racial violence related to civil rights activities is another factor which has limited applications in some counties with examiners. The killing of seminarian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Daniels" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="biographical information on Jonathan Daniels">Jonathan Daniels</a> in Lowndes Country, Alabama, on August 20 and the acquittal of his killer on September 30 appear to have been the single most important factor in reducing Negro applications in that county. It is symbolic of conditions there that a pick-up truck with a rifle visibly displayed has been parked daily immediately outside the examiner's office since the opening of the office. Registration workers in the country have reported increasing threats against their lives and continued efforts to intimidate resident Negro leaders.<br /><br />------<br /><br />This booklet on the Voting Rights Act was part of a resource file on civil rights and voting in the files of the National Federation of Settlements. The Federation was active in community organizing for social justice, voting, and civil rights. The <a href="https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/item/p16022coll391:4298/p16022coll391:4176" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="complete document and transcript">entire document along with a transcript</a> is available via the University of Minnesota Libraries, Social Welfare History Archives.
United States Commission on Civil Rights
<a href="https://archives.lib.umn.edu/repositories/11/resources/2445" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="finding aid">National Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers records</a> (<a href="https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/item/p16022coll391:4298/p16022coll391:4176" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="view this document">Box 169, Folder 3</a>), Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries
1965
Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries
NO COPYRIGHT - UNITED STATES<br /><br />The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. <br /><br /><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/</a>
Every Man His Own Law [cover title: In those days there was no king in Israel...]
<span>This booklet was distributed by the Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government (VCCG) . Led by David J. Mays, a prominent lawyer and advisor to Virginia’s commission on the response to the <em>Brown v. Board of Education</em> decision, it advocated nationally for states’ rights and conservatism, and eventually distributed over 2 million published pamphlets, brochures and speeches. This booklet argues against the Voting Rights Act and describes demonstrations as looting and mobbery. </span><br /><br />Excerpts:<br /><br />EVERY MAN HIS OWN LAW. <br />A commentary by the Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government concerning the unparalleled lawlessness in the streets of the Nation today. The Appendix contains excerpts from the Constitution of the United States; the Virginia Bill of Rights; and excerpts from the Code of Virginia. Specifically covered are several sections of the Code of Virginia dealing with suppression of and punishment for riotous acts.<br /><br /><em>In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. --JUDGES 21:25</em><br /><br />Forward: It seems necessary and appropriate, however, to devote one pamphlet to a protest against the current unparalleled lawlessness that has plagued many of our cities, and which, if continued, would destroy those very liberties which the rioters profess to cherish but seek to gain through lawless acts.<br /><br />p.6 The ballot box is secret and is made accessible to those who have no property qualifications whatsoever and pay no taxes of any kind; and to those who cannot even read the comics. The most ignorant now has the same voice as the philosopher--often much greater because of the weight of minorities in key states in presidential elections. <br /><br />p.8 The American people are long-suffering and will tolerate repeated abuses; but a time comes when they rise in wrath to stamp them out. When they do, no minority group can resiste them, no matter what means it employs. <br /><br />p.9 They are insurrections against government. And it is no longer a matter of race, because some white hoodlums join in the loot, and the property taken and destroyed belongs to Negroes as well as to whites. It is the attack of the lowest of our citizens against any who may have achieved some measure of economic success.... <br /><br />It is to our shame that police officers have been ordered to shoot only in self-defense while mobs run wild, committing every excess. <br /><br />p.10 If they [police] are inadequate to quell insurrection, and if National Guard units may be too thin to put down several mobs at the same time, then we must organize, arm, and train home guard units in all our cities, composed of law-abiding citizens of both races. <br /><br />Mobbery has no place in free America. It must be destroyed.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://images.socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/items/browse?tags=Virginia+Commission+on+Constitutional+Government" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Other VCCG publications">Other VCCG publications</a> in the Image Portal
<a href="http://librarycatalog.virginiahistory.org/final/Portal/Default.aspx?component=AAAAIY&amp;record=76257a97-9be4-4971-b1b5-351eec5dcce9" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Search VMHC for this item">General collection. Call number K 49 V75 E8</a>. Library of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Virginia Historical Society
1967 October
Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Virginia Historical Society
NO COPYRIGHT – UNITED STATES <br />The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. <br /><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/</a><br /><br />Acknowledgement of the Virginia Historical Society as a source is requested.
Learn more: <br /><br /><a href="https://images.socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/exhibits/show/controlling-the-vote/gallery" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Discovery Set: Controlling the Vote">Controlling the Vote -- Rights. Registration. Representation.</a> Social Welfare History Image Portal<br /><br /><a href="https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/uncategorized/voting-rights-act-of-1965/" target="_blank" title="Introduction to the Voting Rights Act" rel="noreferrer noopener">Voting Rights Act of 1965. An Introduction</a>. <em>Social Welfare History Project </em> <br /><br />Hershman, J. H. Jr. <a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Massive_Resistance" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Massive Resistance">Massive Resistance</a>. (2011, June 29). <em>Encyclopedia Virginia <br /><br /><br /></em>
Constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; a response to the Attorney General of the United States...
This booklet was distributed by the Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government (VCCG) in opposition to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Commission began in 1958 and existed until the late 1960s. <br /><br />Led by David J. Mays, a prominent lawyer and advisor to Virginia’s commission on the response to the <em>Brown v. Board of Education</em> decision, it advocated nationally for states’ rights and conservatism, and eventually distributed over 2 million published pamphlets, brochures and speeches. <em>The Constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965</em> argues against the Voting Rights Act. Robert Y. Button (Virginia’s Attorney General at the time) made a typical VCCG argument in stating that the Act “attempted to erode the basic concepts of constitutional government in which the individual States are acknowledged to be sovereign” and is “patently unconstitutional.” <br /><br />Excerpts: <br /><br />pp. 8-9 "the Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly declared that a State is free to conduct its elections and limit its electorate as it may deem wise, except as its actions may be affected by the prohibitions of the Federal Constitution, and that the power of Congress to legistlate at all the subject of racial discrimination in voting rests upon the Fifteenth Amendment and extends only to the prevention by appropriate legistlation of the discriminatiion forbidden by that Amendment..."<br /><br />p. 14 "I do believe, however, -- as Mr. Justice Harlan made clear...that the Framers of the Constitution:<br /><br />'staked their faith that liberty would proper in the new Nation not primarily upon declarations of individual rights <em>but upon the kind of government the Union was to have. </em>And they determined that in <em>a government of divided powers</em> lay the best promise for realizing the free society it was their object to achieve.' (Italics supplied [by Button]. <br /><br />One aspect of this governmental edifice which the Framers sought to erect, and which H. R. 6400 would manifestly subvert, was the distribution of power between the Nation and the States, each supreme within its sphere, thus forming an indestructible Union of indestructible States." <br /><br /><a href="https://images.socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/items/browse?tags=Virginia+Commission+on+Constitutional+Government" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Other publications by the VCCG">Other VCCG publications</a> in the Image Portal
Button, Robert Y.
<a href="http://librarycatalog.virginiahistory.org/final/Portal/Default.aspx?component=AAAAIY&amp;record=76257a97-9be4-4971-b1b5-351eec5dcce9" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Search for this item in the Library Catalog">General collection, Call Number JK1861.V82 B8</a>, Library of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Virginia Historical Society
Virginia Commission on Constitutional Government
1965
Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Virginia Historical Society
NO COPYRIGHT – UNITED STATES <br /><br />The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. <br /><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/</a><br /><br />Acknowledgement of the Virginia Historical Society as a source is requested.
Learn more: <br /><br /><a href="https://images.socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/exhibits/show/controlling-the-vote/gallery" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Discovery Set: Controlling the Vote">Controlling the Vote -- Rights. Registration. Representation.</a> Social Welfare History Image Portal<br /><a href="https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/uncategorized/voting-rights-act-of-1965/" target="_blank" title="Introduction to the Voting Rights Act" rel="noreferrer noopener">Voting Rights Act of 1965. An Introduction</a>. <em>Social Welfare History Project </em> <br /><br />Hayter, J. M. (2017). <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1p0vjw7" target="_blank" title="The Dream is lost." rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>The dream is lost. Voting rights and the politics of race in Richmond, Virginia</em>.</a> Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky <br /><br />Moeser, J. V. & Dennis, R. M. (2020). <a href="https://doi.org/10.21974/02y5-eq41" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Open Access edition 2020"><em>The politics of annexation. Oligarchic power in a southern city.</em></a> Open Access Edition. Digital publisher: VCU Libraries. Original (1982) edition Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company <br /><br />Hershman, J. H. Jr. <a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Massive_Resistance" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="Massive Resistance">Massive Resistance</a>. (2011, June 29). <em>Encyclopedia Virginia</em>