But I am not here to talk about the separate provisions of the Federal Penal Code. I am here to talk about
principles which have been overthrown by the enactment of this bill. The principles that you and I hold
dear. The principles for which our forefathers fought and died to establish and to defend. The principles
for which we came here to rededicate ourselves.
But before I get into that, let me point out one important fact. It would have been impossible for the
American people to have been deceived by the sponsors of this bill had there been a responsible American
press to tell the people exactly what the bill contained. If they had had the integrity and the guts to
tell the truth, this bill would never have been enacted.
Whoever heard of truth put to the worst in free and open encounter? We couldn’t get the truth to the American
people. You and I know that that’s extremely difficult to do where our newspapers are owned by out-of-state
interests. Newspapers which are run and operated by left-wing liberals, Communist sympathizers, and members
of the Americans for Democratic Action and other Communist front organizations with high sounding names.
However, we will not be intimidated by the vultures of the liberal left-wing press. We will not be deceived
by their lies and distortions of truth. We will not be swayed by their brutal attacks upon the character
and reputation of any honest citizen who dares stand up and fight for liberty.
And, we are not going to be influenced by intellectually bankrupt editors of the Atlanta Journal and
Constitution, one of whom has presided over the dissolution of the once great Atlanta Constitution.
We can understand his bitterness in his bleak failure, but we need not tolerate his vituperative and venomous
attacks upon the integrity and character of our people. These editors, like many other left-wingers in
the liberal press, are not influenced by tradition. Theirs is a tradition of scalawags. Their mealy-mouthed
platitudes disgrace the honored memory of their predecessors—such men of character as Henry Grady, Joel
Chandler Harris, and Clarke Howell, men who made the name of the Atlanta Constitution familiar
in every household throughout the South. They are not worthy to shine the shoes of those great men.
In this connection I want to pay my highest respects and compliments to the dedicated men of Atlanta and
of Georgia who gave to the people of their state what is destined to become the true voice of the south.
I have reference to the great newspaper the Atlanta Times.
It is a sad commentary on the period in which we live that it is necessary for the people of a great city
to start their own newspaper in order to get the truth.
I hope you have some success in this venture and I assure you that there will be many subscribers in the
State of Alabama including myself.
As I have said before, that Federal Penal Code could never have been enacted into law if we had had a
responsible press who was willing to tell the American people the truth about what it actually provides.
Nor would we have had a bill had it not been for the United States Supreme Court.
Now on the subject of the court let me make it clear that I am not attacking any member of the United
States Supreme Court as an individual. However, I do attack their decisions, I question their intelligence,
their common sense and their judgment, I consider the Federal Judiciary system to be the greatest single
threat to individual freedom and liberty in the United States today, and I’m going to take off the gloves
in talking about these people.
There is only one word to describe the Federal judiciary today. That word is "lousy."
They assert more power than claimed by King George III, more power than Hitler, Mussolini, or Khrushchev
ever had. They assert the power to declare unconstitutional our very thoughts. To create for us a system
of moral and ethical values. To outlaw and declare unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral the customs,
traditions, and beliefs of the people, and furthermore they assert the authority to enforce their decrees
in all these subjects upon the American people without their consent.
This is a matter that has been of great concern to many legal authorities. The Council of State Governments
composed of representatives of the fifty States sponsored the proposal just last year seeking to curb
the powers of this body of judicial tyrants. The Conference of Chief Justices of all of the state Supreme
Courts of this nation has also issued an historic statement urging judicial restraint upon the Court.
This latter group said, "the value of a firm statement by us lies in the fact that we speak as members
of all the state appellate courts with a background of many years experience in the determination of thousands
of cases of all kinds. Surely there are those who will respect the declaration of what we believe.
"It has long been an American boast that we have a government of laws and not of men. We believe
that any study of recent decisions of the supreme court will raise at least considerable doubt as to the
validity of that boast."
In addition, the state legislatures have for years flooded the Congress with resolutions condemning usurpations
of power by the Federal judiciary.
The court today, just as in 1776, is deaf to the voices of the people and their repeated entreaties: they
have become arrogant, contemptuous, highhanded, and literal despots.
It has been said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There was never greater evidence
as to the proof of this statement than in the example of the present Federal judiciary.
I want to touch upon just a few of the acts of tyranny which have been sanctioned by the United States
Supreme Court and compare these acts with the acts of tyranny enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.
The colonists objected most strenuously to the imposition of taxes upon the people without their consent.
Today, the Federal judiciary asserts the same tyrannical power to levy taxes in Prince Edward County,
Virginia, and without the consent of the people. Not only that, but they insist upon the power to tell
the people for what purposes their money must be spent.
The colonists stated, "he has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts
of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right
inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only."
Today, the Federal judiciary, in one of its most recent decisions, has deprived the American people of
the right to use the unit system of representation in their own state governments for the accommodation
of large districts of people, and has itself prescribed the manner in which the people shall structure
the legislative branch of their own government, and have prescribed how the people shall allocate the
legislative powers of state government.
More than that they have even told the American people that we may not, with a majority of the people
voting for the measure, or with two-thirds of those voting, or even if by unanimous consent, adopt a provision
in our state constitutions to allocate the legislative power of state government in any manner other than
as prescribed by the court. |
