Gordon J. Humphrey Quotes
The Constitution is a list of things the government may not do.
Gordon J. Humphrey, U. S. Senator (Republican, NH), Quoted in The Washington Post, June 13, 1990
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In a 1949 dissenting opinion in Terminiello v. Chicago Jackson claimed the majority view would “convert the Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”
When President Grover Cleveland balked at introducing legislation that might be unconstitutional, he was asked:
Citizen of U. S. & Israel
It was commonly asked of Blacks applying to register. There are few people who could give a cogent response to this. What made it terrible was that the white racist registrars had the unilateral authority to determine whether or not the oral response was adequate. Recording of responses were prohibited so that no Black who was disenfranchised could ever appeal when he/she was rejected. This is one of the thousands of techniques that were used throughout the South to prevent Negro voting. They were so egregious that Lyndon Johnson was abe to force through Southern filibusters The Voting Rights Act which has eliminated the worst of the racist restrictions on Black voting. As the worst of the racist white generation has died off, Southern discrimination in voting has lessened and the situation is better each year. By 2012 there were some who claimed that the law was no longer necessary do to changes in attitude and practice, but others worried that if there were no longer any forms of discrimination in voting, why some wanted to repeal the Voting Rights Act.
Gordon John Humphrey is an American politician from New Hampshire who served two terms in the U.S. Senate as a Republican from 1979 to 1990, and twice ran for Governor of New Hampshire, though both bids were unsuccessful.
