Eisenhower vs. Faubus in 1957 Crisis

By David Pitts
USIA Staff Writer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., (Sept. 21) On one level, the Little Rock crisis of 1957 is a story about racial intolerance and the struggle to overcome it. But it also is a story about federal-state relations under the Constitution. The key constitutional principle, according to experts, was whether federal law, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, is paramount.

In an interview, Roy Reed, a former New York Times reporter and the author of a new book on Orval Faubus, Arkansas governor in 1957, said Faubus knew "federal law superseded state law under the Constitution, but he emphasized the primacy of states' rights," in order to placate the segregationists.

Senator Dale Bumpers (Democrat), the state's senior representative in the U.S. Senate, said the events in Little Rock four decades ago precipitated "the gravest constitutional crisis since the Civil War." The issue was clear, he said, whether the law of the land, as stated by the Supreme Court, would be enforced by the president and obeyed by the state.

Reed explained that Faubus had been "a racial moderate, ironically, perhaps more so than Eisenhower." Faubus "acted rashly out of political opportunism," in deploying the state national guard outside Central High School to prevent black students from entering because he was fearful of losing the segregationist vote and thus the next election.

By contrast, he said, Eisenhower at first displayed caution, hoping the crisis would be resolved locally. But the significant point, both Reed and Bumpers stated, is that Eisenhower ultimately acted to enforce the federal court orders to integrate, whatever his private views or doubts may have been. "It reaffirmed the important constitutional principle that we are a nation of laws and not of men," said Bumpers.

Three weeks after the crisis developed in September 1957, Eisenhower made clear the constitutional principles involved. He announced his executive order dispatching federal troops to Little Rock and the federalizing of the Arkansas national guard in a major address to the American people. He had already stated his position privately to Faubus.

The president's speech was televised in prime time exactly 40 years ago on the evening of September 24. Concerning the Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation, Eisenhower said, "Our personal opinions about this decision have no bearing on the matter of enforcement; the responsibility and authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution are very clear."

"The very basis of our individual rights and freedoms rests upon the certainty that the President and the Executive Branch of government will support and insure the carrying out of the decisions of the Federal courts, even, when necessary, with all the means at the president's command," Eisenhower said. He added: "Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts."

Near the end of the speech, the president clarified the circumstances, as he saw them, under which federal intervention is appropriate. "The proper use of the powers of the Executive Branch to enforce the orders of a Federal court is limited to extraordinary and compelling circumstances. Manifestly, such an extreme situation has been created in Little Rock."

Faubus "knew that Eisenhower was on firm, constitutional ground and that this was a struggle he could not win," Reed said. "But there was enormous pressure to do what he did, and he simply caved in."

"I think he'll be remembered as a flawed and tragic figure who betrayed his promise," Reed said. Unlike some other southern governors who had supported segregation, such as Alabama's George Wallace, Faubus "never said he was wrong and, as recently as three or four months before he died, still claimed that what he did was right."

The most important aspect of the 1957 crisis, Reed and Bumpers agreed, was not the clash between Faubus and Eisenhower: It was the fact that the law of the land, as interpreted by the courts, ultimately prevailed and was enforced.