States Political Influence in the United States
States` Rights Political Influence
Introduction to States Political Influence
Conflict in the Democratic Party developed into a full-fledged schism in the years following World War II, when Roosevelt’s Democratic successor, Harry S. Truman, continued the policy of expanding the prerogatives of the central government. The actual schism occurred at the Democratic Party convention of 1948, when the Northern majority got an extensive program of civil rights incorporated into the election platform (see Civil Rights and Civil Liberties). Opponents of these measures, chiefly political leaders of the Southern states, declared the program an outright abrogation of states’ rights and withdrew from the Democratic Party to form a new political party known as the “States’ Rights Democrats,” often referred to as the “Dixiecrats” (see Political Parties in the United States). The new party nominated the governor of South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, for the presidency; in the 1948 election he received slightly more than 1 million popular and 38 electoral votes. States’-rights issues were also a factor in the tidelands oil controversy, which was decided in favor of the states in 1953.
The Southern states’-rights movement gained new momentum in 1954 after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the states to end racial segregation in public schools. Although most states’-rights leaders remained within the Democratic party, some, including Thurmond (who became a U.S. senator in 1955), joined the Republican Party immediately before the 1964 presidential election. In the election of 1964 five states’-rights strongholds in the Deep South (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina) gave their electoral votes to the conservative Republican presidential candidate, Senator Barry M. Goldwater, who expressed strong support for a strict interpretation of those rights.
In 1968, dissatisfied with the civil rights platform of the Republican Party, many states’-rights advocates supported the former governor of Alabama, George Wallace, who won the electoral votes of five states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi), as the candidate of the American Independent Party. The successful Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon, employed a “southern strategy,” pledging support for an increased role for state governments and the appointment of conservative judges. He secured approval of a program that returned a portion of federal taxes to the states. In the late 1970s, the states’-rights issue shifted to the West, where a “sagebrush rebellion” against federal land and resource policies by development-minded business executives and politicians paved the way for the 1980 election of the former governor of California, Ronald Reagan, to the presidency. In general, the Reagan administration remained a strong advocate of states’ rights.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about States Political Influence in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
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