[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1063 Introduced in House (IH)]
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116th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1063
Raising a question of the privileges of the House.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 23, 2020
Mr. Gohmert (for himself, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Hice of Georgia, Mr. Weber of
Texas, Mr. Harris, and Mr. Crawford) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on House Administration
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Raising a question of the privileges of the House.
Whereas, on July 22, 2020, H.R. 7573 was brought to the House floor for a vote,
with the purpose of eliminating four specific statues or busts from the
United States Capitol along with all others that include individuals who
``served as an officer or voluntarily with the Confederate States of
America or of the military forces or government of a State while the
State was in rebellion against the United States'' yet failed to address
the most ever-present historical stigma in the United States Capitol;
that is the source that so fervently supported, condoned and fought for
slavery was left untouched, without whom, the evil of slavery could
never have continued as it did, to such extreme that it is necessary to
address it here in order for the U.S. House of Representatives to avoid
degradation of historical fact and blatant hypocrisy for generations to
come;
Whereas the Democratic Party Platform of 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852, and 1856 states
``That Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with
or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that
such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to
their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts
of the abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to interfere
with questions of slavery . . . are calculated to lead to the most
alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an
inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger
the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be
countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.'';
Whereas the Democratic Party Platform of 1856 further declares that ``new
states'' to the Union should be admitted ``with or without domestic
slavery, as [the state] may elect.'';
Whereas the Democratic Party Platform of 1856 also resolves that ``we recognize
the right of the people of all the Territories . . . to form a
Constitution, with or without domestic slavery.'';
Whereas the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 penalized officials who did not arrest an
alleged runaway slave and made them liable for a fine of $1,000 (about
$28,000 in present-day value); law-enforcement officials everywhere were
required to arrest people suspected of being a runaway slave on as
little as a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership; the Democratic
Party Platform of 1860 directly, in seeking to uphold the Fugitive Slave
Act, states that ``the enactments of the State Legislatures to defeat
the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are hostile in
character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their
effect.'';
Whereas the 14th Amendment, giving full citizenship to freed slaves, passed in
1868 with 94 percent Republican support and 0 percent Democrat support
in Congress; the 15th Amendment, giving freed slaves the right to vote,
passed in 1870 with 100 pecent Republican support and 0 percent Democrat
support in Congress;
Whereas Democrats systematically suppressed African-Americans' right to vote,
and by specific example in the 1902 Constitution of the State of
Virginia, actually disenfranchised about 90 percent of the Black men who
still voted at the beginning of the twentieth century and nearly half of
the White men, thereby suppressing Republican voters; the number of
eligible African-American voters were thereby forcibly reduced from
about 147,000 in 1901 to about 10,000 by 1905; that measure was
supported almost exclusively by Virginia Democrats;
Whereas Virginia's 1902 Constitution was engineered by Carter Glass, future
Democratic Party U.S. Representative, Senator, and even Secretary of the
Treasury under Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, who proclaimed the
goal of the constitutional convention as follows: This Democrat
exclaimed ``Discrimination! Why, that is precisely what we propose.
That, exactly, is what this Convention was elected for--to discriminate
to the very extremity of permissible action under the limits of the
Federal Constitution, with a view to the elimination of every [African-
American] Negro voter who can be gotten rid of legally.'';
Whereas, in 1912, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson's administration began a
racial segregation policy for U.S. government employees and, by 1914,
the Wilson administration's Civil Service instituted the requirement
that a photograph be submitted with each employment application;
Whereas the 1924 Democratic National Convention convened in New York City at
Madison Square Garden; the convention is commonly known as the ``Klan-
Bake'' due to the overwhelming influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the
Democratic Party;
Whereas, in 1964, the Democratic Party led a 75-calendar-day filibuster against
the 1964 Civil Rights Act;
Whereas leading the Democrats in their opposition to civil rights for African
Americans was a fellow member of the Democratic Party, Senator Robert
Byrd from West Virginia--a known recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan;
Whereas Democrats enacted and enforced Jim Crow laws and civil codes that forced
segregation and restricted freedoms of Black Americans in the United
States; and
Whereas, on June 18, 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal from
the Capitol portraits of four previous Speakers of the House who served
in the Confederacy saying that the portraits, ``set back our Nation's
work to confront and combat bigotry''; the men depicted in the portraits
were Democrat Robert M.T. Hunter, Democrat Howell Cobb, Democrat James
L. Orr and Democrat Charles F. Crisp: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved,
(1) That the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall
remove any item that names, symbolizes or mentions any
political organization or party that has ever held a public
position that supported slavery or the Confederacy, from any
area within the House wing of the Capitol or any House office
building, and shall donate any such item or symbol to the
Library of Congress; and
(2) that any political organization or party that has ever
held a public position that supported slavery or the
Confederacy shall either change its name or be barred from
participation in the House of Representatives.
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