Word: barnetts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Barnett's Position...
...refusing to allow James Meredith into the university, Barnett is pitting his state's powers against the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in public education. He argues that the decision, based on the 14th Amendment, exceeds the powers of the national government; and so, he says, he has the right to interpose state authority...
...Barnett's "interposition doctrine" is not new. It originated as far back as 1789, an the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions aimed at the Alien & Sedition Acts. The doctrine was based on the assumption that the Constitution is a compact among states who have retained sovereignty. Marshall overthrew that argument in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), declaring that the Constitution was "established in the name of the people," not their state governments...
McCloskey called Barnett's constitutional position "pure demogoguery" and his actions "shot-in-the-arm politics." "I can see him drifting along on this issue--he'd like nothing better than to have a federal court throw him in jail...
...stand on nowadays, it still has the political juice in the South," he added. The doctrine was taken up again by Southern governors in 1956 in a verbal protest against the Court's desegregation decision. Gov. Orville Faubus of Arkansas used "interposition" the following year, and now Barnett "is taking a leaf out of Faubus' book," he said...