Filibustering

“ Filibustering is a tactic often adopted by minority parties in Western parliaments when they do not have the numbers to block a bill with a vote, or when they want to force the ruling party or the majority into making concessions. ”

“ And so they went along in that fine, clear, Western morning, on the edge of the Continent, both of them young and strong and vigorous, the Pacific under their eyes, the great clean Trades blowing in their faces, the smell of the salt sea coming in long aromatic whiffs to their nostrils. Young and strong and fresh, their imaginations thronging with pictures of vigorous action and adventure, buccaneering, filibustering, and all the swing, the leap, the rush and gallop, the exuberant, strong life of the great, uncharted world of Romance. ”

“ Circumstances favored a filibustering expedition. The President's bellicose message of December had prepared the people of the Mississippi Valley for war; the Spanish plotters had been expelled from Louisiana; Spanish forces had crossed the Sabine; American troops had been sent to repel them if need be; the South American revolutionist Miranda had sailed, with vessels fitted out in New York, to start a revolt against Spanish rule in Caracas; every revolutionist in New Orleans was on the qui vive. What better time could there be to launch a filibustering expedition against Mexico? ”

“ Important public bills ought invariably to be given first consideration by legislators, instead of, as is still many times the case, being put off until the end of the session in order to allow time for log-rolling. Filibustering and other time-wasting tactics should be curbed, because they tend to obstruct legislation. Many students of government advocate the extension of a plan already adopted in Massachusetts and a few other states, whereby all bills are given a public hearing. ”

“ In my first term, it was filibustered to death each and every year. Now the same people who filibustered reform before, whose obstruction gave us the present system, have vowed to do it again. Let's let the people be heard. ”

“ A vote to filibuster campaign reform is a vote to keep special interest money and kill reform; a vote to filibuster is a vote for the status quo. A Senator who votes ``yes on a filibuster is voting ``yes to soft money and ``yes to keep the cost of campaigns exploding and ``no on reform. That vote will be hard to explain to the American people.
This year, despite all the odds, we've got the best chance in a generation for reform. Throughout our history, the American people have overcome the resistance of entrenched interests to expand our democracy and to keep it strong in changing times. ”

“ Indeed, the other side has not publicly ruled out the possibility of an attempted filibuster. I fear that this precedent will have a chilling effect – keeping our best and brightest from entering public service. ”

“ But the pride of the successful filibuster often smites him and his cause like an ax, and men who have not confided in their mothers go prone with him. It can make the dome of the Capitol tremble and incite the Senators to overturning benches. ”

“ But I cannot conceive that there can be a middle course between submission to the laws, when regularly pronounced constitutional, on the one hand, and open resistance, which is revolution, or rebellion, on the other. I say, the right of a state to annul a law of Congress cannot be maintained but on the ground of the unalienable right of man to resist oppression; that is to say, upon the ground of revolution. I admit that there is an ultimate violent remedy, above the Constitution, and in defiance of the Constitution, which may be resorted to, when a revolution is to be justified. ”

“ And this Court would be required to analyze governmental structures to determine whether a gubernatorial veto provision or a filibuster rule is likely to 'disadvantage' any of the diverse and shifting groups that make up the American people. ”

“ How, upon their plan, but by a gross violation of our clearest obligations—or total disregard of an allegiance to which we are bound, not only by the Constitution, but by the pledge our ancestors gave for us? The force the Government is raising is not, as is falsely alleged by the conspirators, to subjugate States or citizens. It is but to vindicate the Constitution and the laws, and maintain the existence of the government. It is but to suppress the "insurrection," force the citizen to return to his duty, and restore him to the unequalled benefits of the Union. ”

“ Flibustier has passed into the French language, and filibustero into the Spanish language, as a general name for a pirate. The term “filibuster” was revived in America to designate those adventurers who, after the termination of the war between Mexico and the United States, organized expeditions within the United States to take part in West Indian and Central American revolutions. From this has sprung the modern use of the word to imply one who engages in private, unauthorized and irregular warfare against any state. ”

“ In this case, it is not the Government that inaugurates civil war, but the men who, by treason and rebellion, are seeking to overturn it; and for this gigantic crime,—the crime of disturbing the peace of thirty millions of people, of attempting to dismember a Union fraught with manifest advantages to all embraced in it, and to overturn, by force, a Government benignant in its sway, and mighty in its protection, its benefits, and its blessings,—for this crime they have no justification. ”

“ I am wondering how many Senators in this body and how many House members have checked with the governors to find out if they want this unconstitutional monstrosity passed by the Congress.
I do not believe 10 percent of the governors of the Nation would say, “We are weaklings, and we want you to pass a strong civil-rights bill because we do not have the courage to do it. We do not have the courage to protect our people.” ”

“ I desire to make this bill as effective for the purpose intended as possible. The persons who will be aggrieved, particularly in our section of the country, will in the main be ignorant and timid persons, who will be afraid to sue. The fact that they may be afraid to go to the polls and vote is evidence that they will not perhaps have the courage and fearlessness to sue; but there may be some third party who would be willing to enforce the penalty. I think in the great majority of cases the person aggrieved would not avail himself of this provision. ”

“ Remember it and be of good cheer as Senators from the South fight against the so-called civil-liberty bill.
Civil liberty is indivisible.
It is the whole Constitution, the whole ideal. When you sacrifice one part for another you decrease and endanger the total. When the right to jury trial is impeached to save the right to vote there is net loss, and the same loss runs the whole constitutional gamut.
Basically, all American rights are civil rights. States’ rights are civil. The rights of Congress against the Supreme Court are civil, and of the executive against each, and vice versa. ”

“ Read the role of big States in which the Negroes can be expected to poll 5 percent or more of the total vote—not only New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, but such States as Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, and California. It then becomes clear what is at stake in the civil-rights struggle—nothing less than the future balance of political power in the Nation.
But, Mr. President, are we going to compromise the Constitution, whether we lose an election or not? Which is more important—to win an election or to preserve the Constitution? ”

“ For example, the Congress has no power to abolish the poll tax as a prerequisite for voting, because the qualifications of voters are left to each State. There are a great many things which Congress cannot do. Yet pressure is brought on Members of Congress, and they vote for certain measures anyway, because of the pressure.
Why do Senators think this so-called compromise on the civil rights bill is being pressed? Why is there any civil rights bill before us? Why call this measure a right-to-vote bill? It is a perfect farce. It is not a right-to-vote bill. ”

“ We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one’s happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt. Another on the filibuster, on the effort of the American people to get Washington to listen to us, from ‘‘The Fountainhead’’: Integrity is the ability to stand by an ideal. ”

“ It is a dangerous bill, Mr. President. It is far more dangerous than I believe the average man on the street has been able to understand. The average man in the street does not realize what is in the bill. I cannot imagine why Members of Congress would even consider passing such a bill. Again I say that it would not even have been introduced, in my opinion, or given any consideration at all, if it were not purely a political bill.
Mr. President, I have an editorial published in the Greenville (S. C.) News of February 26, 1957, entitled “Civil-Rights Bills Threaten Liberty.” ”

“ You want to talk about what the American people can do? We saw during that, had not that filibuster and the American people mobilized, President Obama would have never admitted in writing what he admitted that next day, which was the Constitution limits his authority. ”

“ The whole purpose of this filibuster was to do everything we could to draw this issue to the attention of the American people so the American people could be heard. If the American people speak with sufficient volume, I continue to have confidence that this body, that the Senators on both sides of the aisle, will have no choice but to listen. ”

“ The Senator has nothing to fear in his own State or in any other State, because if nobody is being denied the right to vote, nobody can be punished by either civil or criminal contempt proceedings under the bill. ”

“ ATTEMPTED USURPATION BY CONGRESS
I can think of no better ilustration of attempted usurpation of the rights of the States by the legislative branch of the Federal Government than what is going on here now. I believe that the Congress, by attempting to enact these so-called civil-rights bills, is invading the rights of the States.
NO DOUBT AS TO CONSTITUTION
Wherever a person lives in this country, whatever political faith he holds, whatever he believes in connection with any matter of interest, he has one firm basis for knowing his rights. ”

“ Yourselves you may extinguish, but Parliament you cannot extinguish,—it is enthroned in the hearts of the people,—it is enshrined in the sanctuary of the Constitution,—it is immortal as the island which it protects. As well might the frantic suicide hope that the act which destroys his miserable body should extinguish his eternal soul. Again I therefore warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the Constitution; it is above your power. Sir, I do not say that the Parliament and the people, by mutual consent and cooperation, may not change the form of the Constitution. ”

“ The most that could be said would be, that the punishment of libels, if it had the tendency ascribed to it, might prevent the occasion of passing or executing laws necessary and proper for the suppression of insurrections.
Has the federal government no power, then, to prevent as well as to punish resistance to the laws?
They have the power, which the Constitution deemed most proper, in their hands for the purpose. The Congress has power, before it happens, to pass laws for punishing it; and the executive and judiciary have power to enforce those laws when it does happen. ”

“ Savages must not be let loose. But while I sanction no war on the rights of others, I will implore my countrymen not to lay down their arms until our own rights are recognized. The Constitution and its guarantees are our birth right, and I am ready to enforce that inalienable right to the last extent. We cannot recognize secession. Recognize it once, and you have not only dissolved government, but you have destroyed social order, and upturned the foundations of society You have inaugurated anarchy in its worst form, and will shortly experience all the horrors of the French Revolution. ”

“ For if the right of secession be fairly and logically deducible from the Constitution—if any State, upon its own mere motion, with cause or without cause, can withdraw from the Union as a partner may dissolve a copartnership—then the Constitution itself is a stupendous failure, the men who made it were bungling journeymen and not master-mechanics, and to institutions of our country, so far from deserving our gratitude and admiration, are worthy only of our contempt. The hour has come, and the men have come, to settle these issues, fraught with such vital consequences to unborn millions. ”

“ President, I have an editorial from the July 9, 1957, Charleston (S. C.) News and Courier entitled “People Should Accept No Compromise on States’ Control of Elections:”
Talk about compromise on civil rights force bills before Congress is in the news from Washington. What goes on behind the scenes the public seldom knows at the time, and doesn’t always find out later. We speak with no knowledge other than what we read in press dispatches. ”

“ What cause, what excuse do disunionists give us for breaking up the best government on which the sun of heaven ever shed its rays? They are dissatisfied with the result of a Presidential election. Did they never get beaten before? Are we to resort to the sword when we get defeated at the ballot-box? I understand that the voice of the people expressed in the mode appointed by the Constitution must command the obedience of every citizen. They assume, on the election of a particular candidate, that their rights are not safe in the Union. ”