THE SOUTH: The Negative Power

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The U.S. South is—or once was—a way of life. It is also a political position. It is also a social structure. It is also men and women involved in that life, that political position, that social structure. To them, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision against segregated schools has an emotional charge almost unimaginable outside the South. To most Southern Negroes it means that the gates of opportunity have opened. To most Southern whites it means that the gates of chaos have opened.

Given a glimmering of understanding of how powerfully the emotion runs, the marvel of today's debate in the South is how rigidly channeled it is into legal and constitutional molds. "You want your kids to go to school with niggers?" is an ugly question, but it is less ugly if the resulting action turns on constitutional science rather than mob violence.

"Deliberate & Palpable." Last week the great phrase in the South was "the doctrine of interposition." The phrase has an illustrious ancestry. In 1798-99 the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia passed three resolutions, written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, in protest to the Alien and Sedition Acts. "In the case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of powers not granted [by the Constitution]," wrote Madison, "the states, who are parties thereto, have the right and are in duty bound to interpose for arresting the progress of evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them."

The Alien Act expired in 1800, the Sedition Act in 1801, and the challenge of Madison and Jefferson died with it.

From time to time, the doctrine of interposition was revived (notably by New England, against the War of 1812, and by Wisconsin, in a challenge to the Dred Scott Decision). South Carolina's John C. Calhoun brought the doctrine to its full flower. He gave the back of his hand to numerical majorities, inventing the phrase "concurrent majority," by which he meant the agreement of "each interest or portion of the [national] community." Each group should have a veto power to stop governmental action favored by all the others, much as the U.N. Security Council works—or fails to work—today. Wrote Calhoun: "It is this negative power—the power of preventing or arresting the action of the Government—be it called by what term it may—veto, interposition, nullification, check or balance of power—which in fact forms the constitution. They are all but different names for the negative power. In all its forms, and under all its names, it results from the concurrent majority. Without this there can be no negative; and without a negative, no constitution."

"Null & Void." Interposition was put to its ultimate test when General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard's ultimatum touched off the bombardment of Sumter.