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The '''States' Rights Democratic Party''' was a short-lived [[Racial segregation|segregationist]], [[social conservatism|socially conservative]] [[political party]] in the [[United States]]. It originated as a breakaway faction of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] in 1948, determined to protect what they portrayed as the [[Southern United States|Southern]] way of life beset by an oppressive [[Federal government of the United States|federal government]],<ref>Lemmon, Sarah McCulloh. "Ideology of the 'Dixiecrat Movement," ''Social Forces'' Vol. 30, No. 2 (Dec., 1951), pp. 162-171 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2571628 in JSTOR]</ref> and supporters assumed control of the state Democratic parties in part or in full in several Southern states. The States' Rights Democratic Party opposed [[racial integration]] and wanted to retain [[Jim Crow law]]s and [[white supremacy]]. Members of the States' Rights Democratic Party were often called '''Dixiecrats'''. (The term ''Dixiecrat'' is a [[portmanteau]] of ''[[Dixie]]'', referring to the [[Southern United States]], and ''Democrat'', referring to the Democratic Party.)
The '''States' Rights Democratic Party''' was a short-lived [[Racial segregation|segregationist]], [[social conservatism|socially conservative]] [[political party]] in the [[United States]]. It originated as a breakaway faction of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] in 1948, determined to protect what they portrayed as the [[Racial segregation in the United States|southern way of life]] beset by an oppressive [[Federal government of the United States|federal government]],<ref>Lemmon, Sarah McCulloh. "Ideology of the 'Dixiecrat Movement," ''Social Forces'' Vol. 30, No. 2 (Dec., 1951), pp. 162-171 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2571628 in JSTOR]</ref> and supporters assumed control of the state Democratic parties in part or in full in several Southern states. The States' Rights Democratic Party opposed [[racial integration]] and wanted to retain [[Jim Crow law]]s and [[white supremacy]]. Members of the States' Rights Democratic Party were often called '''Dixiecrats'''. (The term ''Dixiecrat'' is a [[portmanteau]] of ''[[Dixie]]'', referring to the [[Southern United States]], and ''Democrat'', referring to the Democratic Party.)


By 1950, nearly all the Dixiecrats had returned to the Democratic Party.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} The Dixiecrats had little short-run impact on politics. However, they did have a long-term impact. The Dixiecrats began the weakening of the Democratic Party's total control of presidential elections in the Deep South. The 1948 campaign laid the foundation, at first in presidential voting only, for the creation of a two-party region. Finally, the Dixiecrats, especially [[Strom Thurmond]] (Senator from 1954 to 2003) initiated a national political dialog on the dangers of an expansive federal government that threatened "local control." <ref>Kari Frederickson, ''The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968'' (2001) p. 238.</ref>
By 1950, nearly all the Dixiecrats had returned to the Democratic Party.{{Citation needed|date=May 2011}} The Dixiecrats had little short-run impact on politics. However, they did have a long-term impact. The Dixiecrats began the weakening of the Democratic Party's total control of presidential elections in the Deep South. The 1948 campaign laid the foundation, at first in presidential voting only, for the creation of a two-party region. Finally, the Dixiecrats, especially [[Strom Thurmond]] (Senator from 1954 to 2003) initiated a national political dialog on the dangers of an expansive federal government that threatened "local control." <ref>Kari Frederickson, ''The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968'' (2001) p. 238.</ref>

Revision as of 07:46, 23 July 2011

Not to be confused with Southern Party.

Template:Infobox historical American political party The States' Rights Democratic Party was a short-lived segregationist, socially conservative political party in the United States. It originated as a breakaway faction of the Democratic Party in 1948, determined to protect what they portrayed as the southern way of life beset by an oppressive federal government,[1] and supporters assumed control of the state Democratic parties in part or in full in several Southern states. The States' Rights Democratic Party opposed racial integration and wanted to retain Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. Members of the States' Rights Democratic Party were often called Dixiecrats. (The term Dixiecrat is a portmanteau of Dixie, referring to the Southern United States, and Democrat, referring to the Democratic Party.)

By 1950, nearly all the Dixiecrats had returned to the Democratic Party.[citation needed] The Dixiecrats had little short-run impact on politics. However, they did have a long-term impact. The Dixiecrats began the weakening of the Democratic Party's total control of presidential elections in the Deep South. The 1948 campaign laid the foundation, at first in presidential voting only, for the creation of a two-party region. Finally, the Dixiecrats, especially Strom Thurmond (Senator from 1954 to 2003) initiated a national political dialog on the dangers of an expansive federal government that threatened "local control." [2]

Background

By the 1870s the South was heavily Democratic in national and presidential elections, apart from pockets of Republican strength. It was the "Solid South". The social system became increasingly based on Jim Crow, a combination of legal and informal segregation that made blacks second-class citizens with little or no political power anywhere in the South.[3][page needed]

In the 1930s, the New Deal under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a realignment occurred. Much of the Democratic Party in the South shifted towards economic intervention but rejected civil rights for blacks. White Southern commitments to Jim Crow grew stronger, but were indirectly challenged as two million blacks served in the military during World War II, receiving equal pay in segregated units, and equally entitled to veterans' benefits. The Republican Party, nominating Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey in 1944 and 1948, supported civil rights legislation that the Southern Democrats in Congress almost unanimously opposed.[4][5]

1948 presidential election

1948 electoral votes by state. The Dixiecrats carried Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, and received one additional electoral vote in Tennessee.
See also main article, U.S. presidential election, 1948

When the new president Harry Truman established a highly visible President's Committee on Civil Rights and ordered an end to discrimination in the military in 1948 and the Democratic National Convention in 1948 adopted the plank proposed by Hubert Humphrey calling for civil rights, 35 southerners walked out. The move was on to remove Truman's name from the ballot in the South. This required a new party—the State's Rights Party, with its own nominee, J. Strom Thurmond. The Dixiecrats held their convention in Birmingham, Alabama,[6] where they nominated Thurmond for president and Fielding L. Wright, governor of Mississippi, for vice president. The Dixiecrats did not expect to win the presidency outright, rather they thought that if they could win enough Southern states then they would have a good chance of forcing the election into the House of Representatives where they believed Southern bargaining power could determine the winner. To this end Dixiecrat leaders worked to have Thurmond-Wright declared the official Democratic Party ticket in Southern states. They succeeded in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. In other states, they were forced to run as a third-party ticket.

In Arkansas, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Sid McMath vigorously supported Truman in speeches across the state, much to the consternation of the sitting governor, Benjamin Travis Laney, an ardent Thurmond supporter. Laney later used McMath's pro-Truman stance against him in the 1950 gubernatorial election, but McMath won re-election handily.

Efforts by Dixiecrats to paint other Truman loyalists as turncoats generally failed, although the seeds of discontent were planted which in years to come took their toll on Southern moderates.

On election day 1948, the Thurmond-Wright ticket carried the previously solid Democratic states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, receiving 1,169,021 popular votes and 39 electoral votes. Henry A. Wallace drew off a nearly equal number of popular votes (1,157,172) from the Democrats' left wing, although he did not carry any states. The split in the Democratic party in the 1948 election had been expected to produce a victory by the Republican nominee Dewey, but Truman defeated Dewey in an upset victory.

Subsequent elections

The States' Rights Democratic Party dissolved after the 1948 election, as Truman, the Democratic National Committee, and the New Deal Southern Democrats acted to assure that the Dixiecrat movement would not return in 1952 presidential election. Some local diehards, such as Leander Perez of Louisiana, attempted to keep it in existence in their districts.[7] Regardless of the power struggle within the Democratic Party concerning segregation policy, the South remained a strongly Democratic voting bloc for local, state, and federal Congressional elections, but not in presidential elections.

See also

References

  1. ^ Lemmon, Sarah McCulloh. "Ideology of the 'Dixiecrat Movement," Social Forces Vol. 30, No. 2 (Dec., 1951), pp. 162-171 in JSTOR
  2. ^ Kari Frederickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968 (2001) p. 238.
  3. ^ Perman (2009)
  4. ^ Glenn Feldman, "Southern Disillusionment with the Democratic Party: Cultural Conformity and 'the Great Melding' of Racial and Economic Conservatism in Alabama during World War II," Journal of American Studies Aug 2009, Vol. 43 Issue 2, p199-130
  5. ^ Simon Topping, "'Never Argue with the Gallup Poll': Thomas Dewey, Civil Rights and the Election of 1948," Journal of American Studies 2004 38(2): 179-198
  6. ^ J. Barton Starr, "Birmingham and the 'Dixiecrat' Convention of 1948," Alabama Historical Quarterly;; 1970 32(1-2): 23-50
  7. ^ Glen Jeansonne, Leander Perez: Boss of the Delta (Jackson, MS:University Press of Mississippi, 1977) pp. 185-189.

Further reading

  • Bass, Jack, and Marilyn W. Thompson. Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond (2006)
  • Black, Earl, and Merle Black. Politics and Society in the South (1989)
  • Buchanan, Scott. "The Dixiecrat Rebellion: Long-Term Partisan Implications in the Deep South" (2005). Politics and Policy 33(4):754-769.
  • Cohodas, Nadine. Strom Thurmond & the Politics of Southern Change (1995)
  • Frederickson, Kari. The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968 (2001) 311 pp. ISBN 0-8078-4910-3. the major scholarly study online edition
  • Karabell, Zachary. The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election (2001)
  • Lemmon, Sarah McCulloh. "Ideology of the "Dixiecrat" Movement," Social Forces Vol. 30, No. 2 (Dec., 1951), pp. 162–171 in JSTOR
  • Perman, Michael. Pursuit of Unity: A Political History of the American South (2009)
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