Month: November 2025

Fascinating Politics

George Huddleston: The Heart of Dixie’s Dissenter

In 1914, Birmingham’s prominent representative, Oscar Underwood, who had sponsored the Underwood Tariff reducing tariffs and imposing the first permanent income tax, won popular election to the Senate. His successor was a bit more of an independent figure in prominent attorney George Huddleston (1869-1960). He identified as a “Jeffersonian Democrat” and sought to vote in a way that was true to Jeffersonian ideals as he saw them. This meant that although he was keen on state’s rights, as his votes against Constitutional amendments for women’s suffrage and Prohibition (although he supported it on a state level) indicated, he also supported a lot of progressive legislation, and was strongly supportive of labor unions, being one of their foremost spokesmen. Huddleston was also a representative who was thinking away from the past during the Wilson years. He voted for pensions for veterans of the War of the Rebellion, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine-American War. Pensions for union veterans were a sore spot for the South, as their tax money was going to forces that had defeated them while Confederate veterans only got pensions from their respective states. He also did not embrace the “Lost Cause” narrative, once telling his daughter after she made a display in her class of wishing that the Confederacy had won the war with or without slavery, “Don’t talk like an ass. Slavery is a terrible evil. It degrades both sides” and after his daughter responded that the Confederates must have thought it was fine, he replied, “I’m sorry to say that at that time most Southerners did think it was all right. And the South paid for it” (Packer). Unusually for his time and place, Huddleston supported racial equality. He also spoke out against the KKK and xenophobia, not moves for popularity in 1920s Alabama politics. However, Huddleston could not vote for federal civil rights measures, as he would certainly have been defeated for renomination had he done so.

Consistent with his progressive views, he was an opponent of American imperialism, opposing intervening in Nicaragua and Haiti and initially opposed American entry into World War I (Derbes). Although Huddleston ended up voting to declare war on Germany, he strongly opposed curtailing civil liberties, stating, “In a time like this. . .it takes a lion-hearted courage for a man to stand up on his feet and dare to speak for peace” (Hill). His independence irked President Wilson, who called for his defeat for renomination based on his voting record. However, Birmingham’s voters still liked their representative, and Wilson’s popularity was beginning to take a tumble.

In the 1920s, Huddleston proved an opponent of most the policies of the conservative Republican presidents of the age. In 1931, he was chosen by the Democrats to respond to President Hoover’s State of the Union Address, in which he lambasted him for failing to grant direct relief to Americans (Hill). Despite Huddleston’s criticisms of Hoover, he was becoming more independent from the Democratic Party’s line. Indeed, around this time, he began voting more towards the right (Jones). This impacted Huddleston’s views on FDR’s New Deal programs. While he supported the Tennessee Valley Authority and the National Industrial Recovery Act, he stood alone among Alabama’s delegation as a consistent opponent of New Deal agricultural policy. Despite this and other differences, he won renomination with 61% of the vote. However, in his next term, he further antagonized the Roosevelt Administration with his votes against Social Security, the Bituminous Coal Act, and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act. On the latter, he objected to the bill abolishing holding companies for public utilities, arguing that “regulation” and not “vengeance” was called for (Hill). In 1936, Luther Patrick, a New Deal loyalist, challenged him in the Democratic primary. Huddleston was losing popularity in his district due to his anti-New Deal views, and the same press outlets that decades before had claimed he was a “socialist” or a “radical” now claimed that he was a “conservative”. This did not go unnoticed by Huddleston, who stated, “My principles remain now as always – I have not changed. Some who once criticized me as radical now call me conservative. The change is in them and not me” (Jones). I personally think that it was a bit of both; he grew more conservative and the politics of the time shifted in a liberal direction.

Huddleston had a low moment in his 1936 primary when during a heated argument with his primary challenger regarding him implying that other Alabama Democrats wanted to see him defeated, he hit him over the head with a ketchup bottle. The results of the 1936 primary were just about the reverse of the last one, as Patrick won with almost 60% of the vote (Hill). Huddleston’s DW-Nominate score was a -0.076, which ranked as rather conservative for a Democrat. His political career was over, and his turn to the right stuck. In 1940, Huddleston for the first time endorsed a Republican for president in Wendell Willkie. However, most of Alabama was not with him on this, with only traditionally Republican Winston County voting for him. In 1948, despite having previously called for racial equality, he endorsed Strom Thurmond’s run for president. For Huddleston, the Democratic Party had moved too far away from the style of Jeffersonian politics he embraced.  However, his son, Huddleston Jr., had a political career after, and the elder Huddleston lived to see him be elected to Congress, from the same Birmingham district he had represented, in 1954. Huddleston Sr. died on February 29, 1960 at the age of 90. Interestingly, Huddleston Jr. would have a similar ideological journey as his father and would himself be defeated. However, unlike his father, he was defeated by someone who ran to his right in 1964 rather than to his left. Much had changed in Alabama’s political climate in 28 years.

References

Derbes, B.J. (2012, August 10). George Huddleston Sr. Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Retrieved from

https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/george-huddleston/

Hill, R. (2024, August 25). The Gentleman from Alabama: George Huddleston. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/the-gentleman-from-alabama-george-huddleston/

Huddleston, George. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/4685/george-huddleston

Jones, J. (1960, March 1). George Huddleston, 90, Ex-Congressman, Dies. Birmingham Post-Herald, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/793668498/

Packer, G. (2000). Blood of the Liberals. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/packer-liberals.html?scp=28&sq=perk%20street&st=cse
Fascinating Politics

The Eaton Affair: A Society Drama That Put a Presidency in Peril

I hold that the era we have been living in since 2015 can be called the Trump Era. I was loath to believe this at the start of it, but the truth is that the politics of this current age have completely centered on Donald Trump, on matters both political and personal. They centered on him when he was out of office for four years as well, in part because stories about him made media companies tons of money. He has expressed great admiration for another president who so much dominated in attention of the era of his prominence that historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. titled his 1945 book on him, The Age of Jackson. Andrew Jackson’s entry into presidential politics resulted in the demise of the old Democratic-Republican Party into factions, and Jackson ran as being closest to the original values of Thomas Jefferson. Although his first bid, 1824, was a loss, he alleged a “corrupt bargain” had occurred for him to lose, namely that John Quincy Adams had gotten Henry Clay to give him his electors in exchange for Clay being appointed Secretary of State. Such a quid pro quo was denied by Adams and Clay but the allegation stuck in the public mind. Jackson’s triumphant victory in 1828 was marred by the death of his wife Rachel shortly after. Rachel Jackson had been in fragile health, and the 1828 election had a number of nasty charges thrown around, including that Rachel had committed bigamy by marrying Jackson. The truth was that Rachel had not known that the divorce from her first husband had not been legally finalized at the time of the marriage, only discovering this two years after. Jackson blamed her death on the stress caused by such allegations of her political opponents. This added to his already existing sensitivity on personal accusations against women.

A Controversial Appointment

John H. Eaton

The trouble for Jackson began when he was picking his first cabinet, seeking to reward supporters. One of them was his close personal friend, biographer, and fellow Tennessean John H. Eaton for Secretary of War. Eaton had nine months before married a woman named Margaret “Peggy” O’Neill, who had been a bar maid at her father’s boarding house and had a reputation of being flirtatious with customers. Her first husband, a man who was 22 years her senior in Navy purser John B. Timberlake, was known for having two problems: drinking and debt. Senator John Eaton, who had befriended the couple, got Timberlake an overseas position to help him out. On April 2, 1828, he died abroad, and although an autopsy concluded that he had died of pneumonia, rumors spread throughout Washington society that he had committed suicide over an alleged affair with Eaton and it was further alleged that Eaton had gotten Timberlake the post so he could freely court Peggy. Indeed, only months after Timberlake’s death, John and Peggy were married. Based on this short grieving period and such rumors, the wives of Jackson’s cabinet officers socially ostracized Peggy Eaton, refusing to invite her to any events and would not attend any events in which she was present. Furthermore, Peggy Eaton was considered too outspoken for a woman by others. As John F. Marszalek (2000) wrote, “She did not know her place; she forthrightly spoke up about anything that came to her mind, even topics of which women were supposed to be ignorant. She thrust herself into the world in a manner inappropriate for woman…. Accept her, and society was in danger of disruption. Accept this uncouth, impure, forward, worldly woman, and the wall of virtue and morality would be breached and society would have no further defenses against the forces of frightening change. Margaret Eaton was not that important in herself; it was what she represented that constituted the threat. Proper women had no choice; they had to prevent her acceptance into society as part of their defense of that society’s morality” (56-57). This greatly upset Jackson. Jackson himself had advised Eaton to marry her as soon as possible and defended him and Peggy throughout this ordeal. The woman who was leading this ostracism was none other than his vice president’s wife, Floride Calhoun. John C. Calhoun may also have been using this as a way to boost his views within Jackson’s cabinet, as he and Eaton had significant political disagreements, including on tariffs and nullification. This whole matter became known as the Eaton Affair or the Petticoat Affair.

Peggy Eaton
A furious Jackson called a cabinet meeting to defend Peggy, and supposedly in the process commented that she was “as chaste as a virgin!” despite her having twice been married and having had three children (Hill). Although cabinet officers tried to explain to Jackson the reasoning for their wives’ ostracism of her, the subject became closed once Jackson compared her situation to that of his late wife. Only Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, a widower, and Postmaster General William Barry, who had appreciated Peggy nursing his very ill child, stood by her. This matter was a deepening sore in the administration, and John Eaton would in retaliation release accurate documentation that as Secretary of War to President Monroe Calhoun had supported censuring Jackson over his 1818 invasion of Florida. Calhoun only made matters worse when due to miscommunication he released correspondence between himself and Jackson in 1831. This major rift between Jackson and his cabinet threatened to derail his presidency, so the cunning Van Buren, who Jackson came to increasingly trust, came up with a scheme to resolve the situation.  

Van Buren would first resign his post, followed by John Eaton, thus politically permitting Jackson to ask for the resignations of all his cabinet officers with the pretense of a cabinet reorganization. Of course, Vice President John C. Calhoun could not be part of this, thus he and the ringleader in this ostracism would remain in Washington. This matter, in addition to Calhoun’s support of South Carolina’s nullification of the “Tariff of Abominations” completely alienated Jackson from Calhoun, and made him one of his two most hated rivals. When asked in 1837 if he had any regrets about his presidency, Jackson reportedly responded, “Yes, I regret I was unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun” (U.S. Senate). With all resignations in hand, Jackson remade the cabinet, and in the process brought Van Buren back as Minister to Great Britain, but a vote to continue in his post was defeated by the influence of Calhoun. However, this came off as Van Buren being a victim of petty personal politics, and Jackson would pick him to serve as vice president in his second term. John Eaton would never attain the political heights he had reached before his marriage to Peggy; he did not succeed in a bid to return to the Senate in 1834 (he was made governor of the Florida Territory instead) and then alienated himself from Jackson by becoming a Whig and endorsing William Henry Harrison in 1840.

References

Hill, R. (2013, August 11). Peggy Eaton: The Woman Who Brought Down A Cabinet. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/peggy-eaton-the-woman-who-brought-down-a-cabinet/

John C. Calhoun. UVA Miller Center.

Retrieved from

https://millercenter.org/president/jackson/essays/calhoun-1829-john-vicepresident

Marszalek, J.F. (2017, October 8). Eaton Affair. Tennessee Encyclopedia.

Retrieved from

Eaton Affair

Marszalek, J.F. (2000). The Petticoat Affair.: manners, mutiny, and sex in Andrew Jackson’s White House. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.

The Attempt to Kill “King Andrew”. U.S. Senate.

Retrieved from

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Attempt_to_kill_King_Andrew.htm

Fascinating Politics

The Lodge Bill: An Early Chance at Voting Rights in the South?

Henry Cabot Lodge

The 1888 election was a close one, and one that Republican Benjamin Harrison won narrowly, and only by the electoral vote. It was in this election that Republican got for the first time since the Grant Administration unified government. The Republicans set to work on numerous bills that they did not have a chance at passing if either the House or Senate were Democratic. One of these, proposed by Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.) was the Federal Elections Bill. If enacted, this measure would have, among other provisions, authorized the federal supervision of Congressional elections in cases in which 500 petitions had been made from the respective districts about voting practices to the Judge of the District Court no less than two months prior to the election (The New York Times). This bill only covered Congressional elections, and was constitutional given that Congress has the explicit authority to regulate elections for senators and representatives except for the places in which senators are chosen under Article I, Section 4, Clause 1. The primary purpose of this measure was to implement the 15th Amendment, as it was often the case that blacks were subjected to voter intimidation and fraud to keep their numbers down. There were several Congressional elections in which Congress overturned the result due to voter intimidation and fraud in the South. In 1890, for instance, Thomas E. Miller of South Carolina and John Mercer Langston of Virginia, both who identified themselves as black (Miller was mostly white), were seated after findings by Congress that a fair election had been denied. However, it was a bill that applied nationwide. Thus, the shenanigans of Northern city machines could very well be impacted too. Lodge stood steadfastly by his bill. Something to note here is that Lodge was not in keeping with radical egalitarianism, indeed in response to a letter that expressed concern over “ignorant Negro votes”, he responded, “Nothing in this bill or any other prevents a state from excluding ignorance from the suffrage. Massachusetts has an educational test. South Carolina can do the same, but will not because she wishes to exclude black ignorance and let white ignorance vote” (Gwin, 105). That sounds like a color-blind policy to me!  On July 2, 1890, the bill passed 155-149. It was on to the Senate, where the bill’s sponsor was George Frisbie Hoar (R-Mass.) and it commanded a lot of Republican support. But was it enough?

Although the House passed it, the bill did not seem terribly popular. The Weekly San Diegan (1890) noted, “It is significant that the San Francisco and Portland Councils of Federated Trades have adopted resolutions condemning the federal election bill as dangerous to the freedom of the ballot box” (2). They were not the only unions to oppose this measure. Indeed, Knights of Labor leader Terence V. Powderly (1890) oppsed, arguing that the measure itself would intimidate voters and encourage fraud, and furthermore claims hypocrisy, stating, “The Democratic party does its best to intimidate the colored citizens of the South, and they give as a reason that if they did not do so they would be subject to negro rule down there, or as the put it, “ignorant rule.” In the North the employers of labor intimidate the workmen in the interest of the Republican Party, but that party cannot lay claim to so respectable an excuse as the desire to avoid “ignorant rule,” for the workmen of the North have never imposed ignorant rule where they elected their own representatives” (10).

On August 13th, it was reported that Pennsylvania boss Matthew Quay (R-Penn.) introduced a resolution to postpone consideration of the Lodge Bill so the tariff bill could be passed (Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, 1). It was said that Senator Arthur P. Gorman (D-Md.) and Quay were making an agreement behind the scenes, and it would make sense for those two to do so; both men were at the head of political machines that had engaged in corrupt practices to maintain political dominance. And indeed, the Lodge Bill was postponed, being again considered in the Senate during the lame-duck session of Congress. One of the opponents, notably, was Senator William M. Stewart (R-Nev.), who had authored the 15th Amendment. Opponents in the Senate, led by Gorman, sought to defeat the bill by delay, and they succeeded. Silver Republicans, such as Stewart, had joined the Democrats to defeat the bill given a promise from Gorman not to interfere with their silver interests (The New York Times, 1906).

Although modern liberal opinion is positive on this measure*, liberal opinion did not historically approve. Historian Richard E. Welch, Jr. (1965) noted that “The standard liberal interpretation of American history applauds recent efforts in behalf of greater political equality for the southern Negro. It continues, however, to deplore the Federal Elections Bill of 1890: its introduction, its provisions, the motives of its originators and proponents. In the lexicon of American history the defeat of the force bill of 1890 was a “good thing”” (511). This is quite reminiscent of President Kennedy’s simultaneous support for civil rights in his time and his belief that Republican Reconstruction had been a mistake.

Would the Lodge Bill have made the sort of gains on civil rights like the 1960s? I think it a mistake to believe this law would have been a panacea and would have had difficulty surviving after the next election. However, if it remained, it would have constituted a fair (in my opinion) and constitutional means of not only enforcing a race-neutral application of voting laws but also countering the fraudulent antics of big city machines. I can see this measure as both garnering historical support from contemporary liberals (now that the “little guy” isn’t just a white working man) and contemporary conservatives as a way to actually apply color-blind standards, possibly rendering more federally intrusive measures unnecessary, and countering voter fraud.

* – The pro-critical race theory The Forum Magazine’s 2022 article on the subject, which compares Republican efforts in 1890 to Democratic efforts for the For the People Act in 2022, even though the bills have many substantive differences.
 

References

A Federal Election Bill. (1890, March 15). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1890/03/16/103234162.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

Encourages Fraud. (1890, August 3). The Saint Paul Daily Globe, 10.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/81068633/

Gorman Dies Suddenly; Was Seemingly Better. (1906, June 5). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Click to access 101843565.pdf

Gwin, S.P. (1968). The Partisan Rhetoric of Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. University of Florida.

Retrieved from

Click to access partisanrhetoric00gwin.pdf

Remonstrance Against the Federal Election Bill. (1890, July 24). The Weekly San Diegan, 2.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1048031780/

Senator Quay’s Move. (1890, August 13). Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/394966835/

The Federal Elections Bill of 1890. Library of America.

Retrieved from

https://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2024/10/the-federal-elections-bill-of-1890.html

Welch, R. (1965, December). The Federal Elections Bill of 1890: Postscripts and Prelude. The Journal of American History, 52 (3), 511-526.

Retrieved from

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1890845

Fascinating Politics

The Father of Labor Day: James H. Kyle

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/bellcm.02016a

On July 4, 1890, a hard-working man of 36 who worked for Yankton College and had previously had tenures as a teacher and a pastor was called upon on at the last minute to deliver a speech before the citizens of Brown County, South Dakota. James Henderson Kyle (1854-1901) proceeded to deliver a half-hour powerful, rousing speech in which he denounced corruption in government and called for more redistribution of wealth. These messages resounded with the people of South Dakota who were so distant from political and economic power, and this speech propelled him to the U.S. Senate.

Kyle had originally been a Republican, but by 1887 he found himself in greater sympathy with the views of the Democrats and switched. Although by the time of his election in 1891 he chose not to identify with any party, he had been supported by the populistic Farmers Alliance and Democrats. Kyle soon opted to identify as a member of the left-wing People’s (Populist) Party and mostly voted with the Democrats in his first term. This included his support of the Wilson-Gorman Tariff in 1894 which reduced tariffs and reinstituted the income tax for the highest earners. He also supported free coinage of silver, women’s suffrage, worker’s rights, and Prohibition. However, the cause he was most known for was Labor Day.

On August 28, 1893, Kyle introduced a bill, S. 730, to make the first Monday of September a federal holiday to honor the contributions of American labor. President Cleveland signed the measure into law on June 28th. On an interesting note, this was signed while the Pullman Strike was occurring, which President Cleveland would ultimately end by use of federal troops. In 1898, Kyle would make another legislative contribution through his strong advocacy for the establishment of the Industrial Commission to investigate the economic conditions of the U.S., which President McKinley signed into law.

Although he had been a Populist, during his second term his views started shifting away from Populism as support of socialism was increasing and the strength of the party was declining. On December 28, 1899, Kyle delivered a statement in which he divorced himself from the Populist Party. He said, “Though I am a bimetallist and have been so from conscientious convictions for twenty-five years, I would rather take the most undiluted gold standard coin than to accept bimetallism with the ingredients of radical socialism that are now associated with it” (The New York Times). From then on, he was a Republican and largely supported the party on the issues from then on. He had already been moving in this direction on some issues, such as his support for President McKinley’s vote to ratify the Treaty of Paris on February 6, 1899, which ended the Spanish-American War, brought the Phillippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba under US control and brought an end to the Spanish Empire while establishing the United States as a world power. Guam and Puerto Rico remain U.S. territories today. Kyle’s DW-Nominate score stands at a -0.108, reflecting both his Populism and his later Republican phase.

Kyle’s era of renewed Republicanism would not last long; in 1899 he had contracted malaria and this weakened his heart. On July 1, 1901, he would issue forth his last words that reflected both his faith and peace with the end, “Now I shall rest” (Robinson). Kyle was only 47 years old.

References

James H. Kyle of South Dakota Dead. (1901, July 2). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Kyle, James Henderson. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/5386/james-henderson-kyle

Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of James H. Kyle. (1902). Congressional Record. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Printing Office.

Retrieved from

Click to access SERIALSET-04252_00_00.pdf

Robinson, D. (1904). History of South Dakota, Vol. 1, 612-614.

Retrieved from

https://electricscotland.com/history/world/bios/kyle_james.htm

Fascinating Politics

The Ideological Dick Cheney

Perhaps no other figure is more identified with neo-conservatism nor reviled for it by the critics of the George W. Bush Administration than the now late Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney (1941-2025). This post will cover his Congressional career, where we get to best examine his ideology.

Dick Cheney, 1984

Cheney had a bit of a rough start, as he got into the drinking culture of college fraternities and his excessive drinking resulted in two drunk driving convictions in the early 1960s. However, he cleaned up his act, finished his college education, and in 1969 he secured an internship with moderate Republican Congressman William A. Steiger of Wisconsin. It was through this that he got connected to Donald Rumsfeld, who would bring him on into the Office of Economic Opportunity and mentored him. This connection resulted in him becoming President Gerald Ford’s deputy chief of staff under Rumsfeld and then being elevated to chief of staff. In 1978, Cheney ran for Congress, the same year that George W. Bush first ran for Congress, but unlike Bush, Cheney would win his race in Wyoming. However, this was also the first year that the consequences of his lifestyle came to bite him, as he suffered his first of five heart attacks at the age of 37. Cheney was a beer drinker, had a family history of weak hearts, had a fatty diet, and had smoked up to three packs a day (Rodriguez). After this, he began to eat healthier and quit smoking. Incidentally, his old boss Steiger also suffered a heart attack that year, but his was fatal at the age of 40.

Cheney quickly established himself as a staunch conservative, standing opposed to implementing the Panama Canal Treaty, the establishment of the Department of Education, and the bailout of Chrysler in 1979. Indeed, his first score by the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action (ACA) was a 100%. Cheney was likewise opposed to the windfall profits tax and price controls on oil and gasoline. From 1979 to 1984, he sided with ACA’s positions on votes 93% of the time. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) gave him a similar inverse assessment; he sided only 5% of the time with their positions. His DW-Nominate score also paints the picture of a strongly conservative politician, being a 0.523. In April 1980, Cheney was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Ronald Reagan, and with his election he became one of the president’s staunchest supporters. Indeed, he was one of three reasons the Wyoming delegation to Congress was especially powerful during the Reagan years, the other two being Senators Alan Simpson and Malcolm Wallop. All three were highly influential on the White House. Cheney proved exceptionally conservative in some areas, particularly regarding domestic spending and regulations. Some examples of him being in a conservative minority include:

He was one of 56 representatives to vote against increasing food stamp funds over budget caps on May 8, 1980.

He was one of 29 votes against a foreign aid bill for food to Africa on March 6, 1984.

He was one of 27 votes against an additional three years funding for head start and numerous other social programs on September 16, 1984.

Cheney was one of 48 votes against the first vote on the South Africa sanctions bill on August 1, 1985.

He one of 59 to vote against an increase in funding of child nutrition programs on September 18, 1985.

Cheney was one of 57 representatives to vote against funding arts programs under the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965 on October 10, 1985.

A critic of much environmental legislation, he was one of 33 representatives to vote against extending Superfund programs on December 10, 1985.

Continuing this trend, he was one of 27 representatives to vote against extending Superfund programs on October 10, 1986.

Cheney was one of 29 votes against the Hate Crimes Statistics bill on May 18, 1988. However, he also voted for John Miller’s (R-Wash.) amendment that substituted “homosexuality or heterosexuality” for “sexual orientation” as a covered category.

He was one of 13 votes against the AIDS Federal Policy Act on September 23, 1988. However, he also voted against a motion by Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) to require spousal notification if a patient is infected with AIDS.

Cheney was one of 51 votes against a ban on lawn darts on October 21, 1988.

During the Reagan Administration, Cheney was a faithful supporter of the president, including on some of his more controversial stances, such as sale of AWACs (surveillance planes) to Saudi Arabia in 1981 and his opposition to Congress’s imposition of sanctions on South Africa. He also backed Reagan when he partly rolled back his 1981 tax cuts with the 1982 Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act. On civil rights, Cheney voted against the 1980 Fair Housing bill over its administrative judges provision, voted for extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965, voted for the proposed Civil Rights Act of 1984, and voted for the Civil Rights Restoration Act in 1988 before voting against overriding President Reagan’s veto. His primary priority, however, was on foreign policy. He staunchly supported aid to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua, Angola, and Afghanistan as well as El Salvador’s anti-communist government. Cheney also backed the Strategic Defense Initiative. His expertise on foreign and military policy made him a slam dunk candidate for Secretary of Defense under the George H.W. Bush Administration, being confirmed 92-0, after former Senator John Tower was rejected by the Senate for alleged alcoholism and womanizing. As noted earlier, in this post I was only covering his Congressional career, and the only case one can make for him being a RINO is if the definition of RINO is lack of personal loyalty to our current president. By the way, a quick observation…who would have put it on their bingo card back in 2004 that 20 years later Cheney would have endorsed Harris for president while RFK Jr. would have endorsed Trump?

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

Cheney, Richard Bruce. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/14611/richard-bruce-cheney

Mullen, M. (2025, November 6). Cheney, the state’s most powerful and polarizing politician. Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

Retrieved from

https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/wyoming-remembers-dick-cheney-the-state-s-most-powerful-and-polarizing-politician/article_2344e9ee-03e8-411b-9759-d7ce0b4c2d29.html

Rodriguez, A. (2025, November 4). Dick Cheney had five heart attacks. Here’s how science helped him live until 84. USA Today.

Retrieved from

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/11/04/dick-cheney-heart-attacks-modern-medicine/87083844007/

Fascinating Politics

How They Voted: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

In 1924, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which established a permanent National Origins Quota system, which set a quota of 2% of immigration from nations, based on foreign-born populations that had been counted in the 1890 census. The relevance of the 1890 census was that this predated a massive influx of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Thus, opponents of stringent quotas on these people proposed the 1910 census be used as a basis instead, thus allowing considerably more people from these nations to be admitted. Also facing severe limitations were immigrants from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and Japan along with nations in the “Asiatic Barred Zone” faced complete exclusion. Interestingly, no quota was set for any immigrants from the Western Hemisphere.

This measure was quite popular when passed, indeed the vote in favor in the House had been 323-71 and the Senate 69-9. Support and opposition were both bipartisan, but it was clear that urban politicians stood most opposed. One of these politicians was 36-year-old Emanuel Celler of Brooklyn, a Democrat who was serving his first term in Congress. By 1965, the political situation changed monumentally. Celler was not a freshman in a minority party; he was now one of the most powerful members of Congress as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the national climate had changed considerably on the issues of race and immigration. In 1924, eugenics had been in vogue and fears abounded about anarchist and communist immigrants. By 1965, the American public and its intellectuals had mostly turned away from eugenics as it was now associated with Nazi genocide of Jews, Roma, the disabled, and numerous other minority groups.  Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), a prominent proponent, argued that “The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. “It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society” and Senator Hiram Fong (R-Haw.) claimed that the population of Asian Americans “will never reach 1 percent of the population” (Richwine).  

The House version passed 318-95 on August 25th, with 209 Democrats and 109 Republicans voting for while 71 Democrats and 24 Republicans voted against. Nearly all of the Democratic votes against came from Border or Southern states. A similar pattern existed in the Senate, in which the bill was passed with amendment 76-18 on September 22nd. 52 Democrats and 24 Republicans voted for while 15 Democrats and 3 Republicans voted against in John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky (a curious dissenter given his past votes for liberally admitting postwar refugees), Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. This also included two pairs against from Republicans John Tower of Texas and Wallace Bennett of Utah. The only Democrats outside the South who voted against were Arizona’s Carl Hayden and West Virginia’s Robert Byrd. Hayden had also been supportive of expanding U.S. admittance of refugees after World War II. The House readily accepted the Senate’s changes on a vote of 320-70, with Democrats voting 202-60 for and Republicans 118-10. The House Republicans who were against were Jack Edwards, Glenn Andrews, John Buchanan, and James Martin of Alabama, James B. Utt of California, H.R. Gross of Iowa, Prentiss Walker of Mississippi, Charles Goodell of New York (an odd dissenter here), Albert Watson of South Carolina, and Jimmy Quillen and John Duncan of Tennessee. The only Democrats outside the South or Border states to oppose were Johnny Walker and Thomas Morris of New Mexico, Robert Secrest of Ohio, and Robert Nix of Pennsylvania (a very curious vote indeed!).  

Interestingly, this law was not considered to be highly ideologically salient by liberals or conservatives of the day; neither ADA nor ACA counted the votes on this law as qualifying you as a liberal or a conservative. The measure got high marks per a Gallup poll conducted at the time with 70% approval, and few people considered immigration the issue of foremost importance at the time, with Medicare being the biggest focus (Kohut). In the backdrop of the civil rights movement, eliminating discrimination in immigration quotas seemed a logical choice.

Contrary to Kennedy’s arguments, after 1965 the percent of immigrants who came from Europe fell from over 80% to 13% in 2018. The elimination of the caps on immigration did not prove to be the issue that resulted in massive immigration from South of the border. Indeed, this law for the first time placed a cap on immigration from Mexico. Rather, a development that was occurring at around the same time; the demise of the Bracero Program, which had occurred in 1964, combined with provisions in the 1965 law that exempted from quotas family members of immigrants already in the nation, resulted in 25% of the US’s immigrants being from Mexico in 2018 while 25% more were from other Latin American nations. The Immigration and Nationality Act also resulted in higher levels of immigration from Asian nations; in 2018, 28% of immigrants to the United States were Asian. Furthermore, in 1965, 5% of the population were first-generation immigrants but in 2015 they came to represent 13% of the population (Chrishti, Hipsman, and Ball). The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 has, at its 60th year, been proven to have dramatically changed the demographic makeup of America.

References

Cadava, G.L. How Should Historians Remember the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act? OAH.

Retrieved from

https://www.oah.org/tah/august-2/how-should-historians-remember-the-1965-immigration-and-nationality-act/

Chrishti, M., Hipsman, F., and Ball, I. (2015, October 15). Fifty Years On, the Immigration and Nationality Act Continues to Reshape the United States. Migration Policy Institute.

Retrieved from

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/fifty-years-1965-immigration-and-nationality-act-continues-reshape-united-states

Kohut, A. (2015, February 4). From the archives: In ‘60s, Americans gave thumbs-up to immigration law that changed the nation. Pew Research.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/09/20/in-1965-majority-of-americans-favored-immigration-and-nationality-act-2/

Massey, D.S. & Pren, K.A. (2012). Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Policy: Explaining the Post-1965 Surge from Latin America. Popul Dev Rev., 38(1)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3407978/

To Agree to the Conference Report on H.R. 2580, The Immigration and Nationality Act. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RH0890177

To Pass H.R. 2580, Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0890232

To Pass H.R. 2580, The Amended Immigration and Nationality Act. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RH0890125

Fascinating Politics

The Ratification of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

President Donald Trump recently caused a stir (which is pretty much a daily occurrence now) when he announced the resumption of nuclear weapons testing. Such an announcement made people think at minimum of underground testing or even more dramatic, above-ground testing, the latter which the US hasn’t done since Operation Dominic Tightrope on November 4, 1962. His energy secretary has since stated that these tests would be non-explosive, rather testing to make sure our weapons remain effective, and indeed what “nuclear testing” could mean does vary. This little controversy reminds me of our first ever nuclear arms limitation treaty with the Soviets, which was championed by President Kennedy. This treaty banned testing in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater. Today’s post is about the process of getting this historic treaty enacted.

In 1961, President Kennedy proposed and Congress enacted the Arms Control and Disarmament Act of 1961, which created the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. This was the first agency dedicated to limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Although President Kennedy had started on the legislative of slowing down the arms race, it was President Eisenhower who had first sought to open a discussion on a test ban in 1958, which was followed by a Soviet announcement that they were stopping tests. The push for this effort was bolstered by an expert finding that nuclear weapons tests could be detected, thus making a treaty easily enforceable, and discussions began between the US, USSR, and Great Britain. On August 5, 1963, the US, USSR, and Great Britain signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Although the Democrats had 68 senators to ratify thus by modern understanding of politics no Republican support was needed, the reality of the politics of the 1960s was that Democrats had a considerable moderate to conservative wing, most of them from this time being in the South. On the plus side for the Democrats, Republicans also had a moderate to liberal wing and this wing was stronger in the Senate than in the House. To ensure that 2/3’s vote was secured, Republican support was necessary, and what’s more, it was good for sustaining the idea of bipartisan postwar foreign policy.

Winning Over Dirksen

Although Republicans never held a majority in either legislative chamber of Congress during the 1960s, Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.) punched a bit above his weight in power, as he could not only sway the votes of Republicans but also conservative Democrats. Thus, winning his support for measures that required 2/3’s of the vote was rather crucial, and Dirksen relished in this role. Dirksen initially expressed skepticism, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff persuaded him to support the treaty (CQ Almanac). It also didn’t hurt in persuading him and other Republicans that both former President Eisenhower and former Vice President Richard Nixon publicly announced their support. Dirksen endorsed the treaty and corralled other Republicans in favor because to not do so would “place us in an awkward and difficult position” and that to do so would counter Soviet propaganda about a warlike US, adding that it would  “divest the unremitting effort to paint us as warmongers before the nations of the world and would lose much of its force” (CQ Almanac).

Support

The Democratic Senate leadership as well as the previously mentioned Republican leadership favored, thus you could say the internationalist establishment favored the treaty (or as some modern-day readers might say, “globalist”). This position also had the support of some prominent scientists. Dr. Harold Brown, chief civilian scientist of the Defense Department and Dr. N.E. Bradbury, head of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, supported (CQ Almanac). Best yet for Kennedy was not the support of scientists or politicians, but the American public. A Gallup poll of the time revealed that Americans supported the treaty 63-17 (CQ Almanac). The Senate outcome would not be that much different, but for the sake of interest, let’s look at the opposition.

Opposition

One of the most prominent opponents was Dr. Edward Teller, the lead scientist in the development of the Hydrogen Bomb, who believed, along with other Senate opponents, that the treaty would give an edge to the Soviets. He was joined by Dr. John S. Foster who headed the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, who shared Dr. Teller’s concerns. On the more political side, conservative Reverend Carl McIntire spoke against it as did Stanley M. Andrews, who headed Liberty Lobby’s “Americans for National Security”.

The Tower-Long Reservation

Although several amendments were proposed to the treaty, the one that got the most support was sponsored by John Tower (R-Tex.) and Russell Long (D-La.), both who would vote against the treaty, that would add an “understanding” (opponents claimed it was actually a reservation) that the treaty would not serve to bar the use of nuclear weapons in armed conflicts. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) managed to successfully table the proposal 61-33 on September 23rd. Although Democrats voted to table 46-16, the Republican vote was 15-17. The rejection of this understanding was not a dealbreaker, as on that same day the treaty was approved on a vote of 80-19, 14 votes above what was needed for treaties.

Dirksen was able to deliver all but eight of his fellow Republicans on this matter, and of the Democratic dissenters nine were from the South. 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater of Arizona was among the dissenters, and this would not be the last time, nor the most famous time, he dissented from Dirksen on a major bipartisan issue. Perhaps the most unusual dissenter was Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith, who was a bona fide centrist. Another notable dissenter was West Virginia’s Robert Byrd, who would also differ from Democratic leadership on the same monumental issue Goldwater did with Republican leadership (as you might have guessed, it was the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Interestingly, Byrd was around for the debate on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999, in which he voted “present”. That debate was much different in that all other Democrats voted for while only four Republicans crossed the aisle. Although the USSR and Great Britain had signed on to the treaty, France and China declined to do so. President Kennedy himself acknowledged that the treaty was not a panacea for the troubles of the Cold War, stating that it was a “victory for mankind” but “not the millennium” and that “it will not resolve all conflicts, or cause the Communists to forego their ambitions, or eliminate the dangers of war” and “it will not reduce our need for arms or allies or programs of assistance to others. But it is an important first step– a step toward peace – a step toward reason – a step away from war” (CQ Almanac 1963).

References

ADA Voting Records. (1963). Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Click to access 1963.pdf

 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. CQ Almanac 1963.

Retrieved from

https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal63-1317011#_

Shelley, T. (2022, October 18). How a bipartisan foreign policy approach helped stave off a nuclear crisis six decades ago. WCBU.

Retrieved from

https://www.wcbu.org/local-news/2022-10-18/how-a-bipartisan-foreign-policy-approach-helped-stave-off-a-nuclear-crisis-six-decades-ago

The Limited Test Ban Treaty, 1963. Department of State Office of the Historian.

Retrieved from

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/limited-ban

Fascinating Politics

Joseph Weldon Bailey: The Lone Star State’s Staunch Jeffersonian

Democrats were largely out of power in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and one figure who became prominent in the time of Republican dominance from 1895 to 1913 was Joseph Weldon Bailey (1862-1929). Born in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, Bailey got his start in politics after earning his law degree, and he quickly waded into controversy. Indeed, his career would be one full of controversy. In January 1884, Bailey was called to testify by the Senate over an allegation that he was among the leaders of a faction of the Democratic Party that had engaged in violent intimidation of Republican voters in the 1883 local elections, but he wouldn’t show as he refused to perjure himself (Holcomb, Bailey). Nothing came of this matter, and in 1885 he married and moved to Texas, where he continued his legal and political career.

Congressman Bailey

1890 was an excellent year for Democrats, and among the Congressional freshmen was Bailey. He quickly stood out as a talented parliamentarian as well as for his powerful oratory which he employed to advocate for Jeffersonian democracy, for state’s rights, against protective tariffs, against American expansionism, for free coinage of silver, and for increased railroad regulation. Bailey became a rising star in the Democratic Party, and this as well as his strong support for the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan in 1896 got him the post of House Minority Leader in 1897, at the mere age of 34. Few in politics have had as meteoric of a rise as that of Bailey. A strong partisan Democrat, Bailey had some trouble unifying the Democratic caucus and he controversially held that it was unconstitutional for members of Congress to accept commissions to serve in the army while serving as members of Congress, a cause that he couldn’t get a majority in his own party to support. After this loss, Bailey announced that he would not be a candidate for party leader. In 1901, he was elected to the Senate, replacing the retiring Horace Chilton.

Senator Bailey

Bailey continued to stand for the causes he supported while in the House, and although he seemed promising to lead there too, his reputation suffered after he, a fairly large man, lunged at Senator Albert Beveridge (R-Ind.) on the Senate floor in response to his heckling and threatened him with serious bodily harm. Although Bailey supported numerous causes that would place him on the political left of his time, he started to have troubles with progressives when he was one of the senators who muckraker David Graham Phillips accused of carrying water for private interests in his 1906 Cosmopolitan expose, Treason of the Senate. Although Bailey’s reputation survived this expose, it was nonetheless true that he had accepted hefty fees for legal services from multiple prominent businesses and individuals, and this expose would not be the only one of his problems.

Bailey considered himself a staunch Jeffersonian Democrat, and these beliefs from time to time placed him at odds with progressive causes. For example, many progressives supported Prohibition, and indeed Bailey supported amending the Texas Constitution in 1887 to enact it, but he opposed amending the U.S. Constitution for Prohibition. Bailey also found himself strongly against initiative, referendum, and recall. His opposition to such reform measures was the reason that he and two other Democrats joined President Taft and conservative Republicans in opposition to the admission of Arizona as the state had such provisions in its constitution. President Taft would accept admission of Arizona once the most offensive of the provisions to him, the recall of judges, was removed. Bailey was so floored that all but two of his fellow Democrats supported Arizona’s strongly progressive constitution that he resigned the Senate on March 4, 1911, but he withdrew it before the day was out on the urgings of Texas’s governor as well as the state legislature (The New York Times, 1911). Bailey also, contrary to most in his party, would support the seatings of Senators William Lorimer (R-Ill.) and Isaac Stephenson (R-Wis.), who faced controversies about the natures of their elections. Lorimer, the “blonde boss of Chicago”, would be denied his seat while Stephenson kept his. Bailey also proved an immovable foe of women’s suffrage, again on Jeffersonian grounds. There was also certainly a racial element in this opposition, and many Southerners would oppose women’s suffrage because the 19th Amendment provided for women’s suffrage regardless of race. Bailey would still support some positions that aligned with progressive pushes, such as opposition to high protective tariffs, a tax on corporations, and supporting direct election of senators. Bailey, however, suffered serious reputational damage when he was alleged to have illegally represented Waters-Pierce Oil Company while they were being charged with anti-trust violations in 1900. He had managed to secure Waters-Pierce being able to do business in Texas as an independent corporation, but in 1906 a lawsuit by the state of Missouri revealed that Waters-Pierce was still a subsidiary of Standard Oil, and their permit to do business in Texas was canceled with a $1,623,000 fine which was sustained by the Supreme Court (Holcomb, Waters-Pierce). Matters got worse for Bailey as not all had been disclosed about Bailey’s relationship with Waters-Pierce. Although he had officially not received a fee for his services from Waters-Pierce, it was revealed that he had not disclosed a $13,300 loan from the company at the time (Holcomb, Waters-Pierce). Support for Bailey getting another term was deteriorating, and on January 3, 1913, he resigned, being succeeded by Congressman Morris Sheppard, who was more willing to support emerging progressive causes. Bailey’s rise had come at a young age with his election to Congress at 28, and his political career was over at 50. The Marxist theoretician Daniel De Leon (1913) wrote of him upon his exit, “…Joseph Weldon Bailey, whose voice once rang sympathetically for the underdog in society, now earns his last Judas pence by acting as a mouthpiece of and Senator for the State of Oil”.  Although Bailey had a bit of a conservative turn later in his career, his record beforehand shows in his DW-Nominate score, which was a -0.63. He became increasingly antagonistic to the prevailing Democratic politics and claimed that President Wilson was a “socialist”. As The New York Times (1929) noted in their obituary of him that he was “not tolerant of party opinion which seemed to him veering toward Republicanism or socialism”. Although Bailey attempted a comeback in 1920 by running for governor, Texas Democrats were no longer in the mood for him, preferring progressive Pat M. Neff, a strong supporter of Prohibition.   

In his final years, he would practice law in Dallas, and on April 13, 1929, Bailey delivered an argument in a case in Sherman, Texas, and sat down. He never stood back up, having suffered a fatal heart attack. Bailey’s son and namesake, Joseph Weldon Bailey, Jr., would also have a political career, serving a term in the House at the start of the Roosevelt Administration in which he would oppose some New Deal measures and would endorse Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940 (Melugin). Bailey’s change later in his career as well as his son coming out against FDR makes me consider the elder Bailey to be one of the earliest indicators of the future shift of Texas politics. I think part of it was that progressive means were increasingly differing from traditional Jeffersonianism, but Bailey did become more of a creature of the establishment. Something I must note that I find curious about Bailey is that Sam Rayburn, staunch New Dealer and the leader of the House Democrats from 1940 to 1961 as well as their longest serving House speaker, was a lifelong friend and personal hero (Holcomb, Bailey). Rayburn, who I have examined before, strikes me as more able to adjust his views on the means to attain Jeffersonian ends than Bailey was.

References

Bailey, Joseph Weldon. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/347/joseph-weldon-bailey

Bailey Resigns, Then Reconsiders. (1911, March 5). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

De Leon, Daniel. (1913, January 10). Joseph Weldon Bailey. Daily People, 13(194).

Retrieved from

Click to access jan10_1913.pdf

Holcomb, B.C. (1952). Joseph Weldon Bailey: A Political Biography. Texas State Historical Association.

Retrieved from

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/bailey-joseph-weldon

Holcomb, B.C. (1952). The Waters-Pierce Case: A Landmark Antitrust Suit in Texas. Texas State Historical Association.

Retrieved from

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/waters-pierce-case

Joseph W. Bailey. (1929, April 15). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Melugin, R.W. (1952). Joseph Weldon Bailey Jr.: A Legacy in Texas Politics. Texas State Historical Association.

Retrieved fromhttps://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/bailey-joseph-weldon-jr