Box 17, Folder 13, Document 41

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STATEMENT BY GOVERNOR ROSS R. BARNETT OF MISSISSIPPI BEFORE U. S.
SENATE COMMERCE COMMITTEE, JULY 12, 1963.

Gentlemen, we are facing one of the most critical times in the
history of our nation, Minority groups in our country have taken to
the streets to agitate, to demonstrate, to breach the peace, and to
provoke violence calculated to blackmail this Congress into passing
legislation in direct violation of the United States Constitution.
You have been forced to consider this legislation through the
pressure and blackmail of mobs in the streets.

The President and the Attorney General have encouraged
demonstrations, freedom rides, sit-ins, picketing and actual violation
of local laws. What is happening in our nation today fits the
pattern of what has been happening throughout the world insofar as
the Communist activity is concerned. Compare the Communist tactics
with a Cuba, a Laos, a Berlin, a Viet Nam, a Haiti, or other parts
of the world. Communist tactics are to create a crisis and let it
cool off. The same tactics are being practiced in the United States
through a Birmingham, and letting it cool off; a Jackson, and
letting it cool off; a Danville, Virginia; a Cambridge, Maryland;
riots in Philadelphia; and in New York City. It's the same old
Communist offensive of attack with a hammer and then withdraw.
Attack with a hammer and then withdraw--each time causing more ill
will, more racial unrest and pushing a wedge further between
existing good relations of the people of a nation, It is the divide,
disrupt and conquer technique. The passage of this Civil Rights
legislation will positively provoke more violence, not just in the
South, but. throughout all areas of our nation. I am convinced that
this is a part of the world Communist conspiracy to divide and
conquer our country from within.

The Communists are, therefore, championing the cause of the
Negroes in America as an important part of their drive to mobilize
both colored and white for the overthrow of our government.

There are those who are so anxious to hold high the banner of
the Civil Rights issue that they fail to read some of the writing
on the banner. They fail to realize that the Communist Party hopes
to incite civil insurrection in the South with the purpose of then




fanning the flames into a holocaust in the Northern racial strife
areas. To date, they have been disappointed and defeated by the due
process of law in the South where law enforcement agencies and level-
headed citizens have been able to contain the aggravations of the
outside racil agitators.

Gentlemen, it is obvious to many of us throughout the country
that the racial agitation, strife and conflict that has been stirred
up throughout our entire nation is largely Communist-inspired, Racial
agitators in Mississippi and leaders of demonstrations in other
States have backgrounds that have made many of us, including our
local police, state investigating agencies, and the FBI, to be
concerned about the real motivation behind these so-called Civil
Rights leaders,

Your passage of this legislation will be no cure-all for the
problems that this nation faces because of racial strife and conflict.
The passage of this legislation will, however, mean the complete end
of Constitutional government in America and result in racial violence
of unimaginable scope. Even the New York Times has said that "with
every negro advance, momentum for more violence and agitation
increases, not decreases."

This legislation is so all-inclusive and so sweeping in its
Scope that it has been termed by many as the "WHITE SLAVE BILL".

Gentlemen, you have all learned through your personal
experiences that to try to appease, accommodate, or give concessions
to the demands of the arrogant leads only to additional conflicts and
additional problems which you didn't face before. Certainly, you
are familiar with the results of our policy of appeasement towards
Cuba and Laos. The passage of this Civil Rights legislation will
lead us into an area of conflict between the races, the like of which
we have never known. There will be no end to the constant pressure
for more and more and more.

The Attorney General has stated that the passage of this Bill
would move the problem of so-called diserimination in public
accommodatiens out of the streets and into the courts. I question
this statement. The Attorney General has been personally responsible
for helping to put mobs in the/streets and I can prephesy that this
legislation, if enacted, will put hundreds of thousands of white

business men in the streets.
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The purpose of government should be to protect the individual and
to see to it that no one interferes with his private property. The
present administration seems to have adopted the very heart of the
Socialistic philosophy that the private rights of men are to be
tolerated only at the suffrage of the State, What we are seeing
today is a grasp for power by certain men in public office who would
give to an all-powerful Central Government full control over all
phases of the lives of our people. I see this legislation as an
attempt by greedy minorities to prostitute the purpose of law and
government as a protector of private property, and to use the law to
plunder the property of others.

If you pass this legislation, you are allowing a minority in our
country to force itself upon the majérity of the citizens of our
nation. What and where are the rights of the majority? The powers
of the Attorney General under this legislation will be so sweeping
and so encompassing as to comprise a serious threat, in itself, to
the safety and stability of the nation, The Attorney General in his
testimony has stated, "I think that it is an injustice that needs to
be remedied. We have to find the tools with which to remedy that
injustice." In other words, regardless of the Constitution, he,
through this legislation, asks for the power to run roughshod over
the rights of every individual and dictate to every citizen what he
could or could not do with his private property and business. Where
is the equal protection of the law?

I challenge the newspapers and news media of our country to
awaken the man on the street, the small business man, all those who
respect law and order, to the fact that this legislation is an open
attack on the rights of every individual to the control of his
personal, private property.

Every citizen has the right to own and operate his own business
as he sees fit without interference from any source. To give to an
all-powerful Central Government the right to force the owner of a
private business to unwillingly do business with anyone creates a
new and special right for a minority group in this nation that

destroys the property and personal rights of every citizen,

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Senator Russell has stated and the press has failed to report,
“Our American system has always rejected the idea that one group of
citizens may deprive another of legal rights and property by process
of agitation, demonstration, intimidation, law defiance and civil
disobedience. Every Negro citizen possesses every right that is
possessed by any white citizen. But there is nothing in either the
Constitution or in Christian principles or common sense and reason
which would compel one citizen to share his rights with one of
another race at the same place and at the same time. Such compulsion
would amount to a complete denial of inalienable rights of the
individual to choose or select his associates."

. Gentlemen, what could be more unequal and discrimatory than to
give one particular class of citizens the privilege of by-passing the
normal channels of justice, which other citizens must follow. Under
this legislation, any agitator or trouble-maker or crank could bring
the owner of any business establishment into Federal Court by merely
writing a letter to the U. S. Attorney General. The agitator would
be represented, at no cost to himself, by the officials and attorneys
of the Federal Government. If this legislation passes, American
citizens will have no rights in the ownership and use of their
private property, unless they use it in a way that federal officialdom
considers to be consistent with the so-called public interest. Today,
it seems to many Americans, the demands of the racial agitation
groups fix official opinion as to what is the public interest.
Tomorrow, the public interest could well be something else. It
could even invade the home--or even the bedroom of the individual.

The legitimate purpose of government is to protect a man's home
as his castle. Does not this same basic American Constitutional fact
of life apply equally to a man's own private business? The
legislation you have under consideration would use federal police
power (as exemplified in our system of Federal courts) to destroy a
mants personal property simply to satisfy racial minorities. Can
there be no end to the current insanity that would compel the mixing
of races in social activities to achieve WHAT? You can name it

yourself!




The head of the NAACP here in WasHington, D. C. (where Negro
criminal violence against white people is creating something akin
to a reign of terror) said on a national television program in
early May of this year, that Negro violence is coming and that the
NAACP will promote the violence if whites do not immediately give
the Negro what he demands. What does he demand. Does he honestly
know just what he really wants? Whatever he may want will not come
as a result of this or any other legislative act. You can be certain

of that basic fact. The race problem can never be solved by passage
of laws, court edicts, or by breaches of the peace.
ONE ESTABLISHMENT GOES OUT OF BUSINESS
I have said that the free enterprise system has contributed much



to making our nation great and that many establishments would go out

of business if they were required to integrate. I am prepared to
give you one specific example in Mississippi.

Mrs. Marjorie Staley of Winona, Mississippi, has operated a
restaurant as a Continental Trailways Bus Terminal for quite a while.
Apparently, she was making good and had a good business but she was

told to either integrate or close the business. She chose to close
her business rather than integrate. It is my understanding that

Trailways officials had been directed by the Justice Department to
warn her to either close or integrate. She has approximately

$20,000.00 of equipment in the restaurant. She had seven or eight
people employed -- three whites and three or four Negroes. She had
a payroll of $2,000.00 per month. Now her business is closed, seven
or eight people, Negroes and whites, are out of employment, and she
has $20,000.00 worth of equipment on her hands.

Prior to the time she closed this business, she served both
white and colored in separate compartments -- one for the whites and
one for the Negroes. Apparently, everyone was happy the way it was
being operated. Everyone was well pleased--customers as well as
employees, and Mrs. Staley.

This is one example that neither Congress nor the courts can

change attitudes and custors,
Mrs. Staley is a widow and earned her livelihood operating her

restaurant.
There is a communist nation just 90 miles from our shores and
yet, with this and all the other problems we face as a nation, the

whole attention of the Congress and our nation at this critical era

in history is diverted to this tragic and mis-named Civil Rights








legislation. Perhaps this is all a part of a great conspiracy to
divert our attention to this domestic issue so that we may neglect
other and far more important matters.

Gentlemen, I have done some research on this matter as to the
constitutionality of the proposed bill.

Section 3 of Senate Bill 1732 provides that all persons shall
be entitled, without discrimination or segregation on account of
race, color, religion, or national origin, to the full and equal
enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages,
and accommodations of hotels, motels and numerous other private
business enterprises.

Section 2(h) provides that alleged existing discriminatory
practices "take on the character of action by the states and there-
fore fall within the ambit of the equal protection of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States."

Section 2(i) takes the position that Congress has the right
to enact this proposed legislation in order to remove alleged
burdens on and obstructions to commerce under the Commerce Clause

of the Constitution of the United States.

Congress does not have the
power to enact this legislati on
under the Fourteenth Amendment

The businesses sought to be controlled are purely private in
character and as such fall within the ambit of what is commonly
known as "free enterprise." Every loyal conservative American has
a deep and abiding faith in our free enterprise system. He also
stands ever vigilant to protect the citizen's right to own, control
and operate his private business as he sees fit. The right to do
business or to decline to do business with any individual is an
inseparable part of said citizen's right to operate and control his
privately owned business. If this right is destroyed by the Federal
Government, the citizen has been deprived of one of his inalienable
rights just as surely as though the Federal Government had con-
fiscated his physical property.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United

States provides:
alg
"No State shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of
citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny
to any person within its jurisdiction the

equal protection of the laws."

It should be noted that the Fourteenth Amendment is a pro-
hibition against State action. It is not a prohibition against
the action of one citizen against another. Each individual has a
legal right to discriminate against another individual. Any
control over such individual action by the operatior of a private
business lies wholly within the power of the State legislatures
under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Some states have passed legislation similar to this; some have not.
Each State has the right to make its own decision.

Mississippi has taken no action on this question. In our State
the owner of each business is free to make his own decision as to
whom he will serve.

Eighty years ago in United States v. Nichols, entitled the
Civil Rights cases, 109 U.S. 3, 3 S.CT. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835, the
Supreme Court of the United States held Sections 1 and 2 of the
Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. Said acts provided that
all persons in the United States were entitled to the full and
equal enjoyment of accommondations, advantages, facilities and
privileges of inns and places of amusement. In holding that
Congress had no right to pass such a law under the Fourteenth

Amendment, the Court said:

"It is state action of a particular character
that is prohibited. Individual invasion of
individual rights is not the subject-matter
of the Amendment."

In pointing out the reasons Congress had no such power and
why such attempted legislation on the part of Congress was repugnant
to the Tenth Amendment, the Supreme Court said:
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"And so in the present case, until some state
law has been passed or some state action
through its officers or agents has been taken,
adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be
protected by the 14th Amendment, no legislation
of the United States under said Amendment, nor
any proceeding under such legislation, can be
called into activity; for the prohibitions of
the Amendment are against state laws and acts
under state authority."

* * © +
"Such legislation cannot properly cover the
whole domain of rights appertaining to life,
liberty and property, defining them and
providing for their vindication. That would be
to establish a code of municipal law regulative
of all private rights between man and man in
society. It would be to make Congress take the
place of the State Legislatures and to supersede
them. It is absurd to affirm that, because the
rights of life, liberty and property, which
include all civil rights that men have, are,
by the Amendment sought to be protected against
invasion on the part of the State without due
process of law, Congress may, therefore provide
due process of law for their vindication in
every case; and that, because the denial by a
State to any persons, of the equal protection of
the laws, is prohibited by the Amendment, therefore
Congress may establish laws for their equal
protection. In fine, the legislation which

Congress is authorized to adopt in this behalf








is not general legislation upon the rights of the citizen,
but corrective legislation, that is, as may be necessary and
proper for counteracting such laws as the States may adopt or
enforce, and which, by the Amendment, they are prohibited from
making or enforcing, or such acts and proceedings as the
States may commit or take, and which, by the Amendment, they
are prohibited from committing or taking."

* 2% 2 &
"An inspection of the law shows that it makes no reference
whatever to any supposed or apprehended violation of the 14th
Amendment on the part of the States. It is not predicated On
any such view. It proceeds ex directo to declare that
certain acts committed by individuals shalt be deemed offenses,
and shall be prosecuted and punished by proceedings in the
courts of the United States.”

* & & €
"In other words, it steps into the domain of local jurisprudence,

and lays down rules for the conduct of individuals in society



towards each other, and imposes sanctions for the enforcement
of those rules, without referring in any manner to any supposed
action of the State or its authorities.

"If this legislation is appropriate for enforcing the
prohibitions of the Amendment, it is difficult to see where

it is to stop. Why may not Congress with equal show of

authar ity enact a code of laws for the enforcement and
vindication of all rights of life, liberty and property? If it
is supposable that the States may deprive persons of life,
liberty and property without due process of law, and the
Amendment itself does suppose this, why should not Congress
proceed at once £0 prescribe due process of law for the
protection of every one of these fundamental rights, in every
possible case, as well as to prescribe equal privileges in
inns, public conveyances and theaters? The truth is, that the
implication of a power to legislate in this manner is based
upon the assumption that if the States are forbidden to legislate
or act in a particular way on a particular subject, and power
is conferred upon Congress to enforce the prohibition, this

gives Congress power to legislate gen:.-ally upon that subject,
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and not merely power to provide modes of redress against such
state legislation or action, The assumption is certainly
unsound. It is repugnant to the 10th Amendment of the
Constitution, which declares that powers not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the

States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people."

The Civil Rights Cases arose out of the denial by a hotel
of its accommodations to persons of color and the denial by
theaters of their accommodation to colored persons. In 1959 a Howard
Johnson Restaurant denied service to Charles E. Williams, a colored
attorney for the Internal Revenue Service. He brought suit claiming
that such action violated the Civil Rights Acts of 1875 and the

Commerce Clause of the Federal Constitution. In Williams v. Howard



Johnson Restaurants, U.S.C.A.4th, 268 F.2d 845, the Court re-affirmed

the doctrine of the Civil Rights Cases, and said:
"Sections 1 and 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, upon which the
plaintiff's position is based in part, provided that all persons
in the United States should be entitled to the full and equal
enjoyment of accommodations, advantages, facilities and
privileges of inns, public conveyances and places of amusement,
and that any person who should violate this provision by denying
to any citizen the full enjoyment of any of the enumerated
accommodations, facilities or privileges should for every such
offense forfeit and pay the sum of $500 to the person aggrieved.
The Supreme Court of the United States, however, held in Civil
Rights Cases 109 U.S. 3, 3 S.Ct. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835, that these
sections of the Act were unconstitutional and were not
authorized by either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendments of
the Constitution. The Court pointed out that the Fourteenth
Amendment was prohibitory upon the states only, so as to
invalidate all state statutes which abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States or deprive them of
life, liberty or property without due process of law, or deny to
any person the equal protection of the laws; but that the
amendment did not invest Congress with power to legislate upon
the actions of individuals, which are within the domain of state

legislation."
=i FG =






From a legal point of view, it is perfectly clear that
Congress does not have the power to control the activities of private

business owners under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Congress does not have the power
to enact this legislation under
the Commerce Clause of the
Constitution of the United States.

Article I, Section VIII, Clause 3 provides:

"The Congress shall have Power: .. . to regulate Commerce
with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and
with the Indian Tribes; ..."

No one can reasonably contend that the operation of a
hotel, restaurant or drug store in Mississippi constitutes commerce
among the several States. The Supreme Court of the United States
Clearly did not think so in the Civil Rights Cases, because it said:

"Has Congress constitutional power to make such a law? Of
course, no one will contend that the power to pass it was
contained in the Constitution before the adoption of the
last three Amendments."

The last three Amendments referred to were the 13th, 14th,
and 15th. The Commerce Clause was a part of the Constitution
from it inception. The Supreme Court, therefore, said that no one
would even contend that Congress had the power to pass such law
prior to the adoption of the 13th Amendment.

Of course, the right to control commerce among the States
includes the right to control interstate transportation, and

Congress has done so in this field by Title 28 U.S.C.A., Section 3(1),



which forbids a carrier to subject any person to undue or unreasonable
prejudice or disadvantage in any respect. The right of the Congress
to deny discrimination incident to interstate commerce has been upheld
in a number of cases. Mitchell v. United States, 313 U.S. 80, 61 S.Ct.
873, 85 L.Ed. 1201;

« UL.
Henderson v. United States, 339 U.S. 816, 70 S.Ct. 843, 94 L.Ed. 1302.
In like manner, the Supreme Court has also held that certain State
action constituted an unlawful burden on interstate commerce in this
field. Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373, 66 S.Ct. 1050, 90 L.Ed. 1317.

In the Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court recm@gnized the
power of Congress to regulate public conveyances passimg from one
state to another, and said:

"And whether Congress, in the exercise of its power to

regulate commerce amongst the several States, migtht or might

not pass a law regulating rights in public conveyances passing

from one State to another, is also a question whicch is

not now before us, as the sections in question are not

conceived in any such view."

It is clear, therefore, that the Supreme Court was not unmindful
of the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause whem it decided
the Civil Rights Cases and when it held that no one wowld even
contend that Congress had the right to pass this type of legislation
under the Commerce Clause or prior to the adoption of the 13th, 14th,
and 15th Amendments.

Who would seriously contend that the operation of 2 restaurant

on Capitol Street in Jackson, Mississippi, could be classified as
as commerce among the several States? If such action constitutes
commerce among the States simply because some of the products handled
were manufactured outside of Mississippi, every act of every citizen
in every State could be controlled by Congress on the same basis.
The Constitution should not be stretched entirely out @f shape in an
effort to reach what is believed by some to be an evil, the correction
of which is a matter for each State to make its own decision. This
issue was raised in Williams v. Howard Johnson Restauramt, supra, and
was held not to fall within the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
The Court said:

"The plaintiff makes the additional contention based on the

allegations that the defendant restaurant is engaged in

/ a
| re

interstate commerce because it is located beside an interstate
highway and serves interstate travelers. He suggests that

a Federal policy has been developed in numerous decisions

which requires the elimination of racial restrictions on
transportation in interstate commerce and the admission of
Negroes to railroad cars, sleeping cars and dining cars

without discrimination as to color; and he argues that

the commerce clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8,
Clause 3), which empowers Congress to regulate commerce among
the states, is self-executing so that even without a prohibitory
Statute no person engaged in interstate commerce may place

undue restrictions upon it.

"The cases upon which the plaintiff relies in each instance
disclosed discriminatory action against persons of the
colored race by carriers engeged in the transportation of
passengers in interstate commerce,"
"In every instance the conduct condemned was that of an
organization directly engaged in interstate commerce and the

line of authority would be persuasive in the determination of }
the present controversy if it could be said that the defendant
restaurant was so engaged. We think, however, that the cases
cited are not applicable because we do not find that a restaurant

is engaged in interstate commerce merely because in the course
of its business of furnishing accommodations to the general
public it serves persons who are traveling from state to state. |
As an instrument of local commerce, the restaurant is not
subject to the constitutional and statutory provisions
discussed above and, thus, is at liberty to deal with such

persons as it may select."



Neither the fact that some customers of an establishment may
be travelling in interstate commerce nor the fact that some of

the goods sold may have been purchased from outside the State

constitutes commerce A






subject to control by Congress. In Elizabeth Hospital, Inc.
v. Richardson, y.S.C.A.8th, 269 F.2d 167, the Court held
that the treatment of some patients who were travelling in
interstate commerce did not destroy the purely local character
of the services furnished by the hospital, and said:

"The fact that some of plaintiff's patients

might travel in interstate commerce does not alter

the local character of plaintiff's hospital. If

the converse were true, every country store’

that obtains its goods from or serves customers

residing outside the state would be Selling in

interstate commerce. Uniformly, the courts have held to

the contrary. A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v.

United States, 1935, 295 U.S. 495, 55 S. Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570;

Lawson v. Woodmere, 4 Cir., 1954, 217 F.2d 148, 150;

Jewel Tea Co. v. Williams, 10 Cir., 1941, 118 F.2d 202,

207; Lipson v. Socony-Vacuum Corp., 1 Cir., 1937,

87 F. 2d 265, 267, certiorari granted 300 U.S. 651, 57 S.Ct.

612, 81 L.Ed. 862 certiorari dismissed 301 U.S. 711, 57

S.Ct. 788, 81 L.Ed. 1364."

Congress is now asked to control the operation of country
stores and hotels on the theory that their operation constitutes
commerce among the several States. The statement of the
proposition is so ridiculous that it need not be further
refuted.

It is my understanding that the Attorney General of the
United States has suggested to this Committee that it disregard

the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in
the Civil Rights Cases. I have always been under the impression
that it was the duty of the Attorney General of the United States
to advise congressional committees as to the present status of the
law. I do not believe he has the authority to recommend to you
that you exercise, on behalf of the Federal Government, power

which the Supreme Court has specifically held to be unconstitutional.
oe








In conclusion, I would like to ask certain members of the
Congress two questions: (1) How long do you plan to bow to the
unreasonable and unconstitutional demands of selfish minorities
in your state? (2) When do you expect to begin to represent the
great majority of your own people?

Another question naturally follows--how far do you think the
great white majority of this nation will stand to be pushed?

I have received and am receiving daily letters from substantial
everyday citizens in every state of this nation and I say to you
seriously that our fine white citizens have stood just about as
much of this minority insanity as they can take.

Gentlemen, you are just about to hear from that great, silent,
substantial white majority back home.

When John Doe and Ole Joe Q. Doakes on Main Street in every
city, town, yillage and cross-road in your state, finds out exactly
what is really in this legislation--just what the present U.S.
Attorney General and the Negro minorities want today--turmoil
will really break loose in this nation.

If you think 500,000 Negroes marching on Washington is something,
pass this legislation and you'll find out what one hundred million
angry white Americans will do.

Please think deeply:anthese matters. Think seriously as to
how much the white man will take in having his rights chipped
away with new legislation such as this and by each decision of the
Federal Courts. Are there no rights of the individual sacred
today in this country?

Equality in a social sense is attainable only in total
slavery. Justice Brandeis said, "One of the inalienable rights
of men is to be let alone." This certainly applies to the hard-
working, small business man?

Why should not the individual, who has worked to produce his
own business, have the right to decide whom he will serve, whom

he will associate with, and whom he will let on his premises?

= 315 =


What we are about to experience in our nation today is tyranny
of the mob. The intent of this legislation is to steal away the
fundamental rights of man to own and manage his private property
as he sees fit.

The President and Attorney General are sewing the seeds of
hate and violence. The nation could reap a bloody harvest.
Gentlemen, if you pass this Civil Rights legislation, you are
passing it under the threat of mob action and violence on the
part of Negro groups and under various types of intimidation
from the Executive Branch of this government. This legislation
must be defeated if this nation is to survive as a Constitutional
Republic of Sovereign States.

The decision is yours. May God have mercy on your souls?
THE END

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