States Rights, Legal Wrongs: A Recurring Page from the Segregationist Playbook

In this episode, the hosts discuss the history of invoking some form of States’ Rights theory to limit the efforts of the federal government to expand or protect the rights of persons within the United States

Southern Manifesto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Manifesto

Mississippi State Sovereign Commission

https://web.archive.org/web/20191205182453/http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/index.php?id=243

https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/nullification/#:~:text=The%20crisis%2C%20which%20began%20as,and%20secede%20from%20the%20Union.

“Calhoun’s justification of nullification and secession as constitutional rights of the state also went beyond traditional states’ rights doctrine as they were based on an unprecedented notion of absolute state sovereignty. Most old states’ righters, including James Madison, condemned nullification as an extraconstitutional and un-republican theory as it was not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution and because it subverted the cardinal principle of republican government, majority rule.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina_Declaration_of_Secession#:~:text=The%20South%20Carolina%20Declaration%20of,for%20seceding%20from%20the%20United

“A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.”

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/setting-the-precedent-mendez-et-al-v-westminster-school-district-of-orange-county-et-al-and-the-us-courthouse-and-post-office.htm#:~:text=Mendez%2C%20et%20al.-,v.,school%20segregation%20across%20the%20state.

“Before Brown, et al., v. Board of Education., et al., made racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, there was Mendez, et al. v. Westminster School District of Orange County, et al. This 1946 class-action lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of separate schools for Mexican American students in Southern California and eventually helped end public school segregation across the state.”

https://mississippitoday.org/2024/01/14/on-this-day-in-1963-alabama-gov-georg-wallace-said-segregation-forever/

(Jan 14, 1963)

“On the same portico of the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederacy, Alabama Gov. George Wallace delivered his inaugural address, telling the crowd, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” 

Asa Carter, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote his speech, which made national headlines and thrust Wallace into the national spotlight.” 

https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety

 “I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of ‘interposition’ and ‘nullification’ — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” 

Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality