The Negative Power

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.

Despite the verdict of Appomattox, the doctrine of interposition now walks through the South again. Last week, in the Virginia Senate, on Robert E. Lee's birthday, State Senator Harry Carter Stuart, a great-nephew of General Jeb Stuart, introduced a resolution "Interposing the sovereignty of the State against the encroachment upon the reserved powers of this State." Borrowing the adjectives of Madison, the resolution condemned the Supreme Court's decision as "a deliberate, palpable and dangerous attempt ... to usurp the amendatory power that lies solely with not fewer than three-fourths of the States." Crying "We have too long remained silent," the resolution invited other states to ask Congress to call a convention that would draft a constitutional amendment to "settle the issue of contested power here asserted." Under the Virginia plan, the proposed amendment would affirm the Supreme Court's power to desegregate schools. Then, the South confidently hopes that the amendment will be defeated when fewer than the required three-quarters of the states ratify it. With twelve fairly solid Southern nays, only one more state would be needed.

As it turned out, last week's Virginia Resolution was a very watered-down version of the original. Earlier drafts, which bluntly declared the court decision null and void (after the style of Calhoun's nullificationist South Carolina in 1832), were abandoned when it became apparent that they would probably not pass the general assembly. Many assemblymen feel that outright nullification would be absurd and futile; other Virginians fear that it might interfere with the Gray Plan (TIME, Jan. 2).

The Alabama legislature, zooming past the Richmond pied piper, last week passed a much more rebellious resolution. "Until the issue between the State of Alabama and the general government," it said, "is decided by submission to the states, pursuant to Article V of the Constitution, of a suitable constitutional amendment that would declare, in plain and unequivocal language, that the states do surrender their power to maintain public schools and other public facilities on a basis of separation as to race, the legislature of Alabama declares the decision and orders of the Supreme Court of the U.S. relating to separation of the races in the public schools are, as a matter of right, null, void and of no effect; and the legislature of Alabama declares to all men that, as a matter of right, this State is not bound to abide thereby . . ."

The path of interposition led in a direction that sober Southerners faced with aching hearts. But they were caught in a way of life, a political position and a social structure from which retreat was not easy. In Richmond this week, the governors of Mississippi, South Carolina and Georgia will meet with Virginia's Governor Thomas Stanley to discuss the doctrine of interposition. No doubt, there is a better answer than Civil War II.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.