Pattern of Defiance

In the venerable State Capitol at Richmond, where Robert E. Lee accepted his commission as commander of the rebel Virginia troops, the governors of four Southern states last week proclaimed a pattern of opposition to the Supreme Court of the U.S. Governors Thomas Stanley of Virginia, James Plemon Coleman of Mississippi, Marvin Griffin of Georgia and George Bell Timmerman Jr. of South Carolina jointly declared that the Federal Government had no power to prohibit the segregation of races in the public schools. (North Carolina's Governor Luther Hodges attended as an "observer," did not sign the declaration because his state legislature was not in session.) The governors recommended to their state legislatures "that there be adopted a resolution of interposition, or protest in appropriate language, against the encroachment of the central government upon the sovereignty of the several states and their people."

Georgia's Griffin, most militant among the four, wanted to use stronger language. He insisted that interposition implied 1) a state's right to nullify federal laws, 2) a state governor's right to call out state forces to defend states' rights. "Without these essential provisions," said Griffin, "there is no interposition." But Griffin's reckless bluster was not yet the tone of the South's leaders. The other three governors reflected the painful tension that racks serious Southerners who are unable to face the prospect of desegregation and who are reluctant to defy the authority of the U.S. The case of South Carolina's Timmerman is in point. His father, George Bell Timmerman Sr., was one of the three federal judges who decided last July that Clarendon County's public schools should be desegregated, with all deliberate speed. District Court Judge Timmerman subscribed to the ruling: "It is our duty now to accept the law as declared by the Supreme Court." *

* On Jan. 18, 1955, District Court Judge Timmerman swore in his son as governor of South Carolina.

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