http://www.congresslink.org/print_basics_histmats_civilrights64text.htm
The Republican Party was not so badly split as the Democrats by the civil rights issue.
Only one Republican senator participated in the filibuster against the bill.
In fact, since 1933, Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights than the Democrats.
In the twenty-six major civil rights votes since 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights
legislation in over 80 % of the votes.
By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 % of the votes.
House Debate and Passage*****
The House of Representatives debated the bill for nine days and rejected nearly one hundred amendments
designed to weaken the bill before passing H.R .7152 on February 10, 1964. Of the 420 members who voted,
290 supported the civil rights bill and 130 opposed it. Republicans favored the bill 138 to 34; Democrats
supported it 152-96. It is interesting to note that Democrats from northern states voted overwhelmingly for
the bill, 141 to 4, while Democrats from southern states voted overwhelmingly against the bill, 92 to 11.
A bipartisan coalition of Republicans and northern Democrats was the key to the bill's success.
This same arrangement would prove crucial later to the Senate's approval of the bill.
Return to the House****
House leaders brought the resolution up for floor consideration on July 2 where members quickly
approved the Senate-passed civil rights bill, 289 to 126. Only six representatives changed their
votet from February when the House first sent H. R. 7152 to the Senate. Because there were no
differences in the two bills, there was no need for a conference committee and the bill went immediately
to the White House for President Johnson s signature.
http://clerk.house.gov/histHigh/Congressional_History/index.html
Total Membership: 435 Representatives, 1 Resident Commissioner
Party Divisions: 259 Democrats, 176 Republicans
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/3/82.03.04.x.html
History of Civil Right legislation from FDR to Johnson
Congress overrode President Ronald Reagan's veto of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 ** Grover City Case - Afirmative Action
Johnson voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Former_Slave_Presides_Over_Senate.htm
Former Slave in Senate as a Republican
Blanche K. Bruce
Frederick Douglass
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561813/Douglass_Frederick.html
Republican
1896 case, Plessy vs Ferguson "separate but equal" decision
only dissenting oppion
Justice John Marshall Harlan
Appointed by Rutherford B. Hayes (R)
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Justice Earl Warren
Former Republican Governor of California. Worked to elect Dwight Eisenhower (R) who appointed him to Supreme Court.
Chief justice for the Brown v. Board of Education decision
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Roger Taney, Chief Justice (in 1835) by Andrew Jackson
Dred Scott Case (1856)
The Court ruled that:
- * No Negroes, not even free Negroes, could ever become citizens of the United States. They were "beings of an inferior order" not included in the phrase "all men" in the Declaration of Independence nor afforded any rights by the Constitution.
- * The exclusion of slavery from a U.S. territory in the Missouri Compromise was an unconstitutional deprivation of property (Negro slaves) without due process (prohibited by the Fifth Amendment).
- * Dred Scott was not free, because Missouri law alone applied after he returned there.