THE CONGRESS: The Last, Hoarse Gasp

Holding their final caucus on the all-but-passed civil rights bill, Southern Senators decided that a filibuster would be both futile and dangerous: it might result in a harsher bill, it might bring about a change in the Senate's cloture rule, and it would certainly build up ill will that could only harm the Southern cause in future years. Among the first to agree with the no-filibuster decision was South Carolina's Strom Thurmond, the 1948 Dixiecrat candidate for President of the U.S.

Therefore, when Strom Thurmond arose on the Senate floor at 8:54 one...

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