nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people, and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race" (pp. 145-146, vol. 3, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Roy P. Basler, Rutgers Univ. Press, 1953).

The children of the South are entitled to a public school education in schools established, financed, and operated by local people, who alone, and not the Federal Government or any division or agency thereof, shall determine in what manner the schools attended by their children shall be administered.

The principle of local self-government-local self-determination-is the bedrock of American liberty. The principle of local self-government is the greatest contribution of the Anglo-Saxon race.

I quote from the National Defense Education Act passed by the 2d session of the 85th Congress.

"The Congress reaffirms the principle and declares that the States and local communities have and must retain control over and primary responsibility for public education."

Congress provided in 6(j) Alaska Statehood Act:

"The schools and colleges provided for in this act shall forever remain under the exclusive control of the State, or its governmental subdivisions * * *."

If Alaska, a new State, is entitled to this right, certainly all of the States in the Union, North and South, East and West, are entitled to the same right.

The Supreme Court has ignored the principle that education is one of the powers reserved to the States. It has seen fit to desegregate the public schools of the South by holding that the 14th amendment abolished segregation in the public schools.

The dubious origin of the 14th amendment needs to be studied to be understood, particularly since it is being used by the Supreme Court as an implement for the invasion of areas formerly reserved to State regulation, or to individual or group action, and for breaking down established systems of racial segregation and setting up compulsory racial interassociation-in effect, compulsory racial integration. The "equal protection of the laws" clause and the "privileges or immunities" clause of the 14th amendment are those most frequently invoked to strike down segregation statutes.

The part of article V of the U.S. Constitution which set forth the procedure for amending the Constitution reads as follows:

"The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution * * which shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States."

Two steps in the amending process are necessary: (1) Submission by the Congress; (2) ratification by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States. When article V in the Federal Constitution was being debated, Alexander Hamilton, in arguing in favor of giving this power of initiating an amendment proposed in Congress, said, "There could be no danger in giving this power, as the people would finally decide in the case."

Contrast Hamilton's concept with the action of a "rump Congress" in 1867 and 1868, when it arrogated to itself the power to force ratification of a rejected amendment, through coercing ratifications by several of the rejecting States.

The 14th amendment was submitted by a two-thirds vote of the quorum present in each House of Congress, which was a "rump Congress." Under the constitutional provisions that, "Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members ***", each House had excluded all persons appearing with credentials as Senators or Representatives from the 10 Southern States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. Had these 10 Southern States not been summarily denied their constitutional rights of representation in Congress through the ruthless use of the power of each House to pass on the election and qualifications of its Members, this amendment proposal would never have been submitted. It would have been impossible to secure a two-thirds vote for the submission of the proposed 14th amendment, particularly in the Senate if the excluded members had been permitted to enter and vote.

When the 14th amendment was submitted, these 10 Southern States which had been excluded from representation in Congress had existing governments and legislatures. Congress had sought to avoid extending any recognition to these existing State governments, and the legality of these governments, in what the radical majority in Congress termed the Rebel States, was disputed in some quarters. However, in practically all of these 10 States these governments were the only governments then in existence and these legislatures being the only legislatures then existing in these States, were in June 1866 the only legislatures in these States to which the 14th amendment could be then submitted "to the legislatures of the several States."

These 10 State governments had received presidential recognition and through their legislators they had participated actively in the then recent ratification and adoption of the 13th amendment abolishing slavery.

When the proposed 14th amendment was submitted to the legislatures of the several States, it needed to have ratification by 28 States, being three-fourths of the 37 States. It was never ratified by California. It was rejected by the three border States of Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland. It was also rejected during the latter part of 1866 and the early part of 1867 by the legislatures of the 10 Southern States, including Louisiana, whose Senators and Representatives had been excluded from seats in Congress. Ratification of the 14th amendment was, therefore, impossible unless and until some of these rejections were reversed. With 37 States in all, 10 rejections were sufficient to prevent the adoption of the proposed amendment. The 13 rejections, by the 10 Southern States and 3 border States, were more than sufficient to block ratification, even if all other States finally ratified.

The Louisiana Legislature, which rejected the 14th amendment early in 1867, had been elected under the Louisiana constitution of 1864 and functioned under this constitution. This constitution had been adopted by a convention held in New Orleans under the auspices of the Federal authorities acting largely on suggestions and directions from President Lincoln. It was clearly a reestablishment and continuation of the Louisiana State government as it had existed before secession. This Louisiana Legislature, by Act 4 of 1867, adopted a joint resolution declaring "that the State of Louisiana refuses to accede to the amendment of the Constitution of the United States proposed as article XIV."

The radicals in the Congress had a majority by over a two-thirds vote, from which all representation of the 10 Southern States was excluded. They passed the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867. One of the major objectives of this act was the attainment of ultimate ratification of the 14th amendment through compelling and coercing ratification by the 10 Southern States which had rejected it. The act referred to the 10 Southern States as Rebel States. It recited that "No legal State government" existed in these States. It placed these States under military rule. Louisiana and Texas were grouped together as the Fifth Military District and placed under the domination of an Army officer appointed by the President. All civilian authorities were placed under the control of the military government.

This act, as supplemented, completely deprived these 10 States of all their powers of government and autonomy until such time as Congress should approve the form of a reorganized State government conforming to the specifications set forth in the act and should have recognized the States as again entitled to representation in Congress. It further provided that each excluded State must ratify the 14th amendment in order to again enjoy the status and rights of a State, including representation in Congress. Senator Doolittle, of Wisconsin, a conservative Republican during the floor debate on the bill, said: "My friends, I shall say what has been said all around me, what is said every day-the people of the South have rejected the constitutional amendment, and therefore, we will march upon them and force them to adopt it at the point of the bayonet, and establish military power over them until they do adopt it." The Founding Fathers of our Constitution never contemplated or understood that ratification of a proposed constitutional amendment by a State could lawfully be compelled at the point of a bayonet and subjecting all aspects of civil life in a recalcitrant State to continued military rule until the State recanted and ratified the amendment under the duress of continued and compelling force. President Johnson vetoed the Reconstruction Act, denouncing it as a "bill of attainder against 9 million people at once." The act was promptly passed over the President's veto by the required two-thirds majority in each

House. Military rule took over in 10 Southern States to initiate the processof forcing a subjugated people to an ultimate acceptance of the 14th amendment.

Relief from the oppressive and unconstitutional features of the Reconstruction Act was sought in vain in the courts. Three times the Supreme Court found some reason for not deciding these constitutional issues. The Supreme Court at that time failed in these cases to measure up to the standard of the judiciary in a constitutional democracy. If the Reconstruction Act was unconstitutional, the people oppressed by it were entitled to protection by the judiciary against such unconstitutional oppression.

In Mississippi v. Johnston (4 Wall. 475), and in Georgia v. Standard (6 Wall. 50), and in ex parte McCardle (6 Wall. 318), the Supreme Court permitted Congress to evade a judicial determination of the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Act. As a result of these three decisions, enforcement of the Reconstruction Act against the Southern States, helpless to resist military rule without the aid of the judiciary, continued. Puppet governments were founded in these various States under military auspices. New State constitutions were adopted by legislators composed of freed Negroes, scalawags, and northern carpetbaggers, conforming to the requirements of Congress. One by one thesepuppet State governments ratified the 14th amendment, which their more independent and legal predecessors had rejected. In July 1868 the ratifications. of this amendment by the puppet governments of 7 of the 10 Southern States, including Louisiana, gave more than the required ratification by three-fourths of the States and resulted in a joint resolution adopted by Congress and a promulgation by the Secretary of State declaring the 14th amendment ratified. and in force.

In Georgia v. Stanton (6 Wall. 50), the Supreme Court declined to entertain: a suit attacking the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Act on the ground. that the issues raised were political and not justiciable.

Ratification in the Southern States came finally as a coerced result through the legislators of the puppet government created by the Reconstruction Act, after rejection of the amendment by the prior State legislatures.

If plain coercion under the Reconstruction Act be not regarded as nullifying: the ratification votes of the Southern States recorded by puppet legislators obeying the orders of their masters, these puppet legislators have no power to speak on matters of legislative intent ex post facto for the States which they represented in voting for ratification. These States, as soon as they were free of Federal coercion, repudiated and disestablished these puppet governments. and all that went with them.

The question arises-upon analysis of the provisions of article V and a study of the history of the evolvement of this article in the Federal Constitution of 1787-whether these coerced ratifications should be decreed null and void as the product of a usurpative invasion by Congress into an area, the ratification or rejection process, from which it is excluded by article V. To permit Congress to have a decisive and controlling part in the final decision on ratification or rejection of a proposed constitutional amendment would constitute a clear disregard of the plain intent of the Founding Fathers concerning the meaning and effect of article V. Congressional coercion intruding into and upon the ratification process is contrary to the understanding between Madison and Hamilton when, following Hamilton's frank statement that the power of final decision in an amendment proposal should be vested in the people, these two great statesmen cooperated in setting up the amendment procedure.

It may be contended that after a lapse of more than 80 years it is too late to question the constitutionality or validity of the coerced ratifications of the 14th amendment, even on constitutional and serious grounds. The answer is that there is no statute of limitations that will cure a gross violation of the amendment procedure laid down by article V of the Constitution. Precedents are not lacking for the successful assertion of constitutional procedures which have been flouted or ignored over long periods of time. In Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, the Court on a constitutional point reversed its jurisprudence of more than 90 years' standing. The Court held a doctrine involving statutory construction would not be reexamined and upset after that lapse of time, but that the true doctrine on the constitutional point, once resolved, must be given effect, regardless of the lapse of time.

This principle should apply with respect to the 14th amendment. If the coerced and enforced ratifications of the 14th amendment by the Southern

States in 1868, compelled by congressional duress, constituted an infraction of the amendment procedure ordained by article V of the Constitution, these enforced ratifications are just as violative of the provisions of article V in 1954 as they were in 1868.

Article V of the Constitution was violated and flouted by the 1868 coerced ratifications of the 14th amendment, and the only conclusion which can be drawn from the coerced ratifications of the 14th amendment is that the 14th amendment was never legally adopted.

"The Present South," at page 277, 1904, written by E. G. Murphy, of Montgomery, Ala., contains the following paragraph:

"*** the South in establishing the dogma of race integrity has done so, not in order to enforce a policy of degradation, but simply to express her own faith in a policy of separation. Her desire is not to condemn the Negro forever to a lower place but to accord him another place. She believes that where two great racial masses, so widely divergent in history and character, are involved in so much of local and industrial contact, a clear demarcation of racial life is in the interest of intelligent cooperation, and—in spite of occasional hardships-is upon the whole conservative of the happiness of both."

The Supreme Court decision, in opening the way for legal compulsory integration when Negroes apply for admission to white schools, arrested the real progress which had been made in all of the Southern States in the gradual elimination of any forms of legal compulsory separation. The intention of a legislative body is the controlling principle in the interpretation of statutory law. It has been clearly shown that the Congress which proposed the 14th amendment operated segregated schools. Therefore, the Supreme Court has held, again and again, that the "separate but equal doctrine" is not, per se, a violation of the intent of the 14th amendment. The operation of the public school system by the various States, according to varying conditions, is essentially a legislative matter, and the power to operate such a school system was never delegated to the Federal Government by the States.

The Supreme Court of the United States is supreme only on Federal questions; State courts are supreme on those powers which were reserved to the States; and neither the State nor the Federal courts have the power to legislate.

There is little doubt that the Supreme Court's decision in the segregation -cases has set back the cause of the Negro in the South by more than a generation. The Negro may, through the decision of the Supreme Court, force his way into the white schools, but he will not force his way into white hearts, nor earn the respect he seeks. What the evolution of race relations was slowly and wisely achieving has been arrested by the revolutionary decision of the Supreme Court. Since the Supreme Court has ignored the 10th amendment, and since the 14th amendment, upon which they have based their decision in the segregation cases is of the most doubtful origin, it follows that the control of schools, regardless of the 14th amendment, should be reserved to the States.

I, therefore, submit that the only satisfactory solution of the problems posed by the desegregation cases is the adoption of the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which reads: "Administrative control of any public school, public educational institution, or public educational system operated by any State or by any political or other subdivision thereof, shall be vested exclusively in such State and subdivision and nothing contained in this Constitution shall be construed to deny to the residents thereof the right to determine for themselves the manner in which any such school, institution, or system is administered by such State and subdivision."

I respectfully request and strongly urge the adoption of this amendment, which will end the "second tragic era" in the South. Respectfully submitted.

ORAL STATEMENT OF WILLIAM A. BEARD, PAST COMMANDER IN CHIEF, SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS, WESTFIELD, N.J.

Mr. BEARD. Thank you. I am appearing before this subcommittee as the representative of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, pursuant to a written authorization signed by Tom White Crigler, who is the national commander in chief of the organization.

The preamble

Senator KEFAUVER. That is T. W. Crigler, Jr., commander in chief, Sons of Confederate Veterans. He lives at Macon, Miss.?

Mr. BEARD. Macon, Miss.

Senator KEFAUVER. All right, sir.

Mr. BEARD. The preamble of the constitution of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which was adopted on July 1, 1896, declares, among other things:

An unquestioned allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, largely written and expounded by southern men, the very Magna Charta of our liberties; a strict construction of all sections conferring power upon the Federal Government, and the implied and understood reservations to the States arising therefrom * * *

Article IX of the amendments to the U.S. Constitution reads:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

And, then, the 10th amendment, reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Congress has no power, express or implied, to regulate any public school, any public educational system, or any educational institution. That power under the Constitution was reserved to the States under the doctrine of the reserved powers.

Now, our Constitution was erected upon the fundamental principle that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. Therefore, any law written by agents of the people in contradiction to the real will leads to disobedience, disregard, or repeal.

The issue of enforced integration in the schools in the several States has many phases. It has legal, moral, sociological, and political phases. Conformity is the device that has been used in all totalitarian countries by which freedom has been destroyed. Conformity means that everybody must think alike, act alike, and obey the edict of central authority.

When the Articles of Confederation were adopted in 1781, each State retained its sovereignty, its freedom, and its independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which was not expressly conferred upon the United States or upon the Congress. When the Revolutionary War ended and King George III made a treaty of peace with the United States, he made it with the United States and then there was spelled out in that treaty the individual 13 States, which indicates that they were 13 independent States.

Our Founding Fathers realized that they could not apply a rule of conformity over these 13 States, that each State had its own particular and peculiar customs, and therefore these reserved powers were reserved to the States, and the Constitution could never have been adopted had it not been for these powers being reserved to the States, all powers except those expressly granted to the Federal Government or implied to the Federal Government under section 8, that last paragraph.

The individual rights of association, practice of religion, and the right to educate our children in accordance with local customs and