Jim Crow Quotes
Vardaman, on of America’s worst racists, was one of the main drafters of that constitution. This is an example of why the Voting Rights Act was later needed to unravel a endemic system of keeping African Americans from voting or having any part in politics.
The rich whites won the class war by splitting the poor and working class with race hatred and then coopting one half—the poor whites so that neither the poor whites or blacks obtained much and even into the 21st century the poor of the American South were the worst off of all the poor in America.
Blacks were fighting and dying in WWII. They were equal when they were under fire, but otherwise not. The war was against fascist protagonists whose creed was inequality while the allies were upholding freedom and equality. But making that aspiration a reality was difficult.
Incredible as it seems today, no Black person had ever dined in the White House as a guest of the President. African American servants were common. And Abraham Lincoln had received many Black visitors as had Presidents after him. But no president had ever had a Black person to dine as a social equal. The photo, reproduced here, illustrates the parity. But that was the worst thing a President could do so far as Tillman and his fellow racists were concerned. They had, since the end of the Civil war, used violence and terrorism to murder, maim and/or intimidate the Negro population to remain in an economic and socially inferior position. In Tillman’s state over these decades they had more lynchings than legal executions and there were plenty of them. Newspapers over the South riled up the whites and there was a wave of terror to be sure that the President’s importune action would not be taken as an endorsement of the Negro’s right to any equality or even dignity. This dinner essentially wedded all the Blacks to the Republican Party and all the Southern Whites to the Democratic Party. This would remain the political situation for over 60 years until the Democrats passed the LBJ Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Republicans decided to solicit the Southern White racists who accepted the invitation and within a few years, there was a complete reversal of party loyalty of most Blacks and most Southern White Racists.
He was not only an atheist himself, but he was a major opponent of organized religion which he regarded as one or the major initiators and drivers of slavery, segregation and discrimination. For this reason he was critical of Martin Luther King—{583307}. His irreligiosity had always prevented his gaining much support from his fellow African Americans even though a great writer like H. L. Menken considered Schuyler, "the best writer in America".
This marvelous quotation gives us a picture of the essence of the conflict in conception of freedom between Southern whites and negroes. There was no way to change the large majority of whites’ opinions and it is easy to see why Jim Crow and Southern discrimination evolved as it did. The emancipated Blacks had insufficient power or resources and there was not enough effort or success at changing white attitudes and no where near enough law enforcement to impose the view on the majority of the Southern white population.
The 10th Amendment reserves powers to the states and limits the Federal Government’s powers. However, there are other clauses in the Constitution, like the Commerce Clause (Article I Section 8), which gives the Federal Government authority and control over Interstate Commerce, which in modern society permeates almost all activities of State government, The result is that the federal government / state government power division has been a political issue and not really a constitutional one. At the time Republicans advocated a literal 10th Amendment interpretation and the Democrats favored a stronger Federal Government with more authority and power as stated by the Commerce Clause. Roy had been trying to explain to his fellow Republican strategists that it is hard to attract Blacks to the remainder to the Republican Platform as long as they were insensitive to what the 10th Amendment meant to Blacks historically. The Southern states cited the 10th Amendment more than any other part of the constitution to justify their right to maintain slavery. It was the Federal Government that ended slavery. Under the rubric of the 10th Amendment the South managed to get rid of most of the racial civil rights Reconstruction reforms that were imposed by the Federal Government on the Southern States. And it was the 19th Amendment that was the authority for Segregation for 100 years. And the terrorism of the Klu Klux Klan and the lynching and terror imposed on Blacks by Southern states claiming the 10th Amendment right to do so. Finally, it was the Federal Government, overriding the 10th Amendment with the Commerce Clause and other parts of the Constitution that passed and enforced the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Desegregation and the end to Lynching and other Southern State-Sponsored terrorism. Blacks will not any time soon accede to having the 10th Amendment literal view of the role of government and if Republicans insist on that there would continue to be very few Black Republicans,
This quote illustrates the Southern segregationist view in the Jim Crow South.
He was a realist who foresaw that even though the South had been militarily defeated, there were those who would persist in their efforts to retain slavery or a de facto form where freedom is the form but subjugation was the substance. It would be Jim Crowe and terrorism in the form of the KKK and a successor to Lincoln who was very sympathetic to the aims and culture of the Southern Rebels.
He had worked himself into a crescendo of shouting when he delivered this quotation. The main reason this quotation is important is that most politicians of North and South wanted to get the animosity of the Civil War over with and to do so sponsored these memorial events where both sides could celebrate and remember the bravery of men fighting and dying for their cause. The photographs of former enemies shaking hands which the newspapers ran frequently, would give the impression that by the 1880s the hatred and animosity of the Civil War was behind the nation. However, that was not at all true. Most veterans of both sides maintained their hatreds throughout their entire lives. Even their children carried the hatred into the next generation. Politicians were expected to not open the scabs of the old wounds in public, but many like Oates found political utility in not doing so. The moral outrage of many in the North remained until WWII when regional unity genuinely transcended the Civil War.
