National Affairs: The Southern Manifesto

On the floor of the U.S. Senate last week, Georgia's Walter F. George read a manifesto signed by 82 Southern Representatives and 19 Southern Senators. It pledged the signers to exert "all lawful means" toward reversing the Supreme Court's desegregation decision, and it appealed to Southerners "to scrupulously refrain from disorder and lawless acts."

The idea for a Southern manifesto was conceived by South Carolina's Senator Strom Thurmond, who enlisted the powerful aid of Virginia's Senator Harry Byrd. At a caucus of Southern Senators, Thurmond produced mimeographed copies of his own arm-waving call for nullification. The caucus pushed Thurmond aside, ordered the paper rewritten by more temperate Senators. The final version was written mostly by Georgia's Senator Richard Russell, with amendments by Florida's Spessard Holland and Texas' Price Daniel and polishing by Arkansas' highly polished J. William Fulbright, a liberal hero. At that point Strom Thurmond elbowed his way back onto the scene, posed for photographers dictating the final draft—with which he had nothing to do—to his wife seated at a typewriter.

Many signers regretted the manifesto and its party-splitting implications. Said one Southern Senator: "Now, if these Northerners won't attack us and get mad and force us to close ranks, most of us will forget the whole thing and maybe we can pretty soon pretend it never happened." It was not that easy: during the week, a succession of Northern Democrats attacked the manifesto. Not a Southerner arose in reply.