| | Wilson also curtailed minority appointments to executive, diplomatic, and judicial positions. Those latter numbers weren’t large — about 30 — but they were posts traditionally reserved for black Americans. The signal was terrible, even if it’s unclear that those black appointments would have met approval from a Senate controlled by Southern Democrats. Estimates reckon that between 15,000 and 20,000 black civil service employees, 6% of the federal workforce, were impacted by the administration’s actions.<ref>https://www.nysun.com/national/princetons-purge-of-wilson-follows-a-change/91174/</ref> Wilson successfully led Congress to a series of [[Progressive]] laws, including a reduced tariff, stronger antitrust laws, the [[Federal Reserve System]], hours-and-pay benefits for railroad workers, and outlawing of child labor, raising wages for adults. Furthermore, constitutional amendments for prohibition and woman suffrage were passed in his second term. In effect, Wilson laid to rest the issues of tariffs, money and antitrust that had dominated politics for 40 years. | | Wilson also curtailed minority appointments to executive, diplomatic, and judicial positions. Those latter numbers weren’t large — about 30 — but they were posts traditionally reserved for black Americans. The signal was terrible, even if it’s unclear that those black appointments would have met approval from a Senate controlled by Southern Democrats. Estimates reckon that between 15,000 and 20,000 black civil service employees, 6% of the federal workforce, were impacted by the administration’s actions.<ref>https://www.nysun.com/national/princetons-purge-of-wilson-follows-a-change/91174/</ref> Wilson successfully led Congress to a series of [[Progressive]] laws, including a reduced tariff, stronger antitrust laws, the [[Federal Reserve System]], hours-and-pay benefits for railroad workers, and outlawing of child labor, raising wages for adults. Furthermore, constitutional amendments for prohibition and woman suffrage were passed in his second term. In effect, Wilson laid to rest the issues of tariffs, money and antitrust that had dominated politics for 40 years. |
| | + | In 1972 Sen. [[Joseph Biden]] re-cycled the [[John_C._Calhoun#positive good|racist rhetoric of John C. Calhoun]], arguing that school segregation was a "positive good" for Blacks. Calhoun famously laid out his doctrine of separation of the races as a civilizing force among Blacks which became Democrat talking points before the [[Dred Scott] decision, throughout the [[Civil War]], [[Reconstruction]], the [[Jim Crow]] era, and the [[New Deal]]. In a Democrat [[filibuster]] on the floor of the [[Senate]], Calhoun famously said: |
| | + | {{quotebox-float|"I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good."}} |
| | + | {{Quotebox-float|“I think the concept of busing … that we are going to [[integrate]] people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride, a rejection of the entire black awareness concept, where black is beautiful, black culture should be studied; and the cultural awareness of the importance of their own identity, their own individuality.”<ref>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/read-the-transcript-of-the-october-1975-npr-interview-with-sens-joe-biden-and-edward-brooke</ref>}} |