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George Wallace on the federal court system

About this recording

Oral Histories of the American South, Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Date created

1974

Duration

2:03

File

MP3

License

This recording copyright ©2004. All Rights Reserved

Source

Original audio housed by University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

See this recording in context

• Brown versus Board of Education: Rhetoric and realities: In this lesson, students will listen to three oral histories that shed light on political and personal reactions toward the 1954 Supreme Court ruling Brown versus Board of Education. Includes a teacher's guide as well as the oral history audio excerpts and transcripts. (Page 1.2)
• Brown versus Board of Education: Rhetoric and realities: In this lesson, students will listen to three oral histories that shed light on political and personal reactions toward the 1954 Supreme Court ruling Brown versus Board of Education. Includes a teacher's guide as well as the oral history audio excerpts and transcripts. (Page 2.1)

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• Search LEARN NC for George Wallace, oral histories, and separation of powers.

In the classroom

A short excerpt from a 1974 interview between Walter de Vries and Alabama Governor George Wallace. This interview took place at the beginning of Wallace’s third term as governor. Jack Bass, another interviewer, asks Governor Wallace a question about a quote made by an historian, who had written that an Alabama judge named Frank Johnson had more power than the governor and the legislature. George Wallace expresses his views on the federal government and comments on the court orders related to busing children to different schools in Montgomery, Alabama.

Transcript

Jack Bass

I wanted to get your reaction to a point he makes in that book. He contends that in Alabama that Judge Frank Johnson has had more impact on basic government as it applies to people here than you have because of his rulings on reapportionment, on property taxes, on mental health.

Governor George Wallace

I readily agree that the federal court system has had more impact on everything than the Congress, than the president, than all the governors. Not just governor of Alabama. When one federal judge can strike down in one line what an elected legislature of the people can do, and there’s no recourse because they’re automatically upheld by the circuit court of appeals and the Supreme Court, yes. You’re absolutely right. It didn’t have to be Frank Johnson. It could have been you. Whoever was a federal judge. And they talk about supreme, and the executive branch and the Congressional branch abrogating and making the presidency stronger—why the strongest branch of the government is the judiciary. They even legislate. They even come along and put—even draw up the plan themselves. They don’t pass on the constitutionality of the plan, they go down there and draw it up and put it into law. And they legislate it. You’re right. That’s exactly what Thomas Jefferson said was going to happen someday. And that’s what we oppose. And that’s what I oppose. That’s what people in the country oppose. Busing children all over Montgomery. Seven court orders. Seven straight years. Every time they issue a court order they obey it. Next year that’s not good enough. Another court order. Hundreds of little children go to school this year this school, this school next one, next year go to school here. You’re right. The federal courts have had more impact on the people’s rights and prerogatives than has the legislature of the state and the governor of the state.