Last night, as most of you know, Senate Leader Yurtle McConnell evoked “Rule 19” to prevent uppity Northern Librul Elizabeth Warren from reading into the Senate Record Coretta Scott King’s 1986 letter criticizing Jefferson Beauregard Session III’s stance on Civil Rights .
Rule 19 was created in 1902 to protect the feeling of rabid segregationist Senator “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman’s feelings after another Senator called him a "malicious liar" on the Senate Floor.
From The American Senate: An Insider's History By Neil MacNeil,
“South Carolina's "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman accused his South Carolina colleague, John McLaurin, of selling his vote for federal patronage. McLaurin called Tillman a malicious liar. Tillman lunged at him, striking him above the left eye. McLaurin hit Tillman back with an upper-cut to the nose. They were separated by other senators, and the brawl caused consternation throughout political Washington. Senator George Hoar of Massachusetts seized the occasion to propose a rule he long had had in mind: "No senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly or by any form of words impute to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.”
Tillman got off easy being called a liar, what McLaurin should have called him was a murderous thug...
Tillman in his own words:
- "[We] agreed on on the policy of terrorizing the Negroes at the first opportunity by letting them provoke trouble and then having the whites demonstrate their superiority by killing as many of them as was justifiable." (Tillman boasted during the same speech that his pistol had been used to execute seven black men in 1876. Source.)
- "The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they learn their place again." (In reference to Booker T. Washington's visit to the White House. Source.)
- "We of the South have never recognized the right of the Negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him. I would to God the last one of them was in Africa and that none of them had ever been brought to our shores." (That one was on the floor of the Senate itself. Source.)
Thankfully, we have Senator Yurtle to thank for making the Senate safe again for segregationists, vote stealers and bigots.
Thanks, Mitch.