States' Rights Party

The States' Right Party is one of the parties composing the National Progressive Pact. While usually in rhetoric, the party portrays itself as the successor to anti-Federalist movements and the early Democratic-Republican Party arguing for states' autonomy. In truth, the party is mainly unified on the issue of preserving racial segregation in the American South.

History

The precise origins of the States' Right Party can be dated to the 1948 Democratic National Convention when Storm Thurmond, Governor of South Carolina, angered at Dwight D. Eisenhower winning the nomination on a pro civil right platform, decided to work with a group of southern Democrats to support George S. Patton's bid to run as a third party candidate. Ultimately, Patton won only three electoral votes, but the break managed to show the cracks in the Democratic Party.

While Eisenhower and the Democratic leadership were able to convince Thurmond and most of the Patton Democrats to initially come back to the fold, most political commentators predicted that this was only delaying an eventual split in the Democratic Party. That day finally came in 1954, when news leaked that the Supreme Court would rule in favour of desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring that school segregation was unconstitutional.

In response, a group of Southern Democrats signed the Southern Manifesto, declaring they would no longer be a part of a Democratic Party that backed desegregation and would instead join ranks with the Nationalist Party. Shortly afterwards, Storm Thurmond would lead a group of Dixiecrat Senators to formally leave the Democrat party to join the Nationalist Party.

Despite sharing a lot of shared views when it came to social issues and foreign polices, these defecting Democratic Senators clashed with the Nationalist Party leadership over the matters of economic policy. This led to former Southern Democrats to quickly form the States' Right Party who would be allied with the Nationalist Party, but were not required to toe the Nationalist Party's line and were only required to support the Nationalist candidate's bid for president.

However the States' Right Party face early setbacks as they attempted to nominate Harry F. Byrd as the 1956 Nationalist nominee for presidency and failed. Additionally, the 1956 election saw many initial representatives of the party lose their seats to Sothern Democrats who did not join them.

In 1957, the State's Right Party would find an unexpected ally in the Progressive Party who seceded from Democrats over Burton Wheeler not winning the presidential nomination the year before. The leadership of these two parties and the Nationalist Party decided that if they could pool their resources together they could defeat the political establishment. This agreement lead to the formal formation of the National Progressive Pact.

In 1960, the State's Right Party would fail in their attempt to make Storm Thurmond the NPP's presidential candidate. In general the election of 1960 saw some of the continued trends of the 1956 election and 1958 mid-terms with them continuing to lose ground to the Southern Democrats. However the past two years has seen some improvements for the States' Right Party's popularity as the growing debate of Civil Rights and the emergence of George Wallace as a leader of the party has led to some commentators seeing the party improve in their electoral performance in the 1962 mid-terms and subsequent 1964 election.

Members

George Wallace: Governor of Alabama, and potential 1964 NPP presidential nominee

Strom Thurmond: Senator of South Carolina

J. William Fulbright: Former Senator of Arkansas

Wilbur Mills: Representative of Arkansas's 2nd District

L. Mendel Rivers: Representative of South Carolina's 1st District

John Stennis: Senator of Mississippi