Say Anything Blog

In response to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt New Deal measures, a conservative coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats was formed to oppose it.

The Conservative coalition, in the United States of America, was an unofficial Congressional coalition in American politics bringing together the conservative majority of the Republican Party and the conservative, mostly Southern, minority of the Democratic Party. Aside from 1949-51, it controlled the United States Congress from 1937 to 1961 and remained a potent force until the mid-1980s.

In 1936 President Franklin D. Roosevelt had won a second term in a landslide, sweeping all but two states over his Republican opponent, Alf Landon. For the 1937 session of congress the Republicans would have only 17 Senators (out of 96 total) and 89 congressmen (out of a total of 431). Given his party’s overwhelming majorities, Roosevelt decided he could overcome opposition to his liberal New Deal policies by the conservative justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, which had struck down many New Deal agencies as unconstitutional. Roosevelt proposed to expand the size of the court from nine to fifteen justices; he could then “pack” the court with six new justices who would support his policies.

However, many conservative Southern Democrats strongly opposed the plan. Among their leaders were Senators Harry Byrd and Carter Glass of Virginia and Vice-President John Nance Garner of Texas. U.S. Senator Josiah Bailey (D-NC) released a “Conservative Manifesto” in December 1937. “Give enterprise a chance, and I will give you the guarantees of a happy and prosperous America,” Bailey said. The document called for a balanced federal budget, state’s rights, and an end to labor union violence and coercion. Over 100,000 copies were distributed and it marked a turning point in terms of congressional support for New Deal legislation.

The Conservative Manifesto’s ten points were as follows:

1.  Immediate revision of taxes on capital gains and undistributed profits in order to free investment funds.
2.  Reduced expenditures to achieve a balanced budget, and thus, to still fears deterring business expansion.
3.  An end to coercion and violence in relations between capital and labor.
4.  Opposition to “unnecessary” government competition with private enterprise.
5.  Recognition that private investment and enterprise require a reasonable profit. 
6.  Safeguarding the collateral upon which credit rests.
7.  Reduction of taxes, or if this proved impossible at the moment, firm assurance of no further increases.
8.  Maintenance of state rights, home rule, and local self-government, except where proved definitely inadequate.
9.  Economical and non-political relief to unemployed with maximum local responsibility.
10.  Reliance upon the American form of government and the American system of enterprise.

Be not surprised if all these points sounds familar.  To a large extent conservatism is once again having to rally its forces to fight another New Deal program which much like FDRs, attempts to force government solutions on our free enterprise system. 

The nation should have learned a lesson from FDRs socialism but it didn’t and now history is indeed repeating itself.

References:
New Deal
North Carolina History Project