# Racial Views of the Presidents **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 29, 2009, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624 "2009-07-29T01:17:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/21 "2009-07-29T15:01:31Z")
Well, they recently dug up a tape of Nixion saying that he was against abortion, but that it should be legal in cases of rape or when the baby will be bi-racial, so I think we can safetly put Nixion in the “racist” category. And people say it’s hard to find compromise with the abortion issue. ---
**Author:** ![davidw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@davidw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidw)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/22 "2009-07-29T15:05:03Z")
Another book you may want to try is [Nixon’s Piano: Presidents and Racial Politics from Washington to Clinton](http://www.amazon.com/Nixons-Piano-Presidents-Politics-Washingtion/dp/0029236851/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248879778&sr=8-1). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/23 "2009-07-29T15:38:08Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Wasn’t Warren Harding supposedly part black? Or was this a rumor, intended to be derogatory, which was circulated about him by his opponents? Nearly all presidential candidates had someone spreading rumors they were part black. It was rule number one in the “how to smear a candidate” guidelines in the 19th century. Washington not only freed his slaves at his death, but he sneakily freed one of them. He brought a slave of his to Pennsylvania while he lived there. Pennsylvania then had a law that any slave became free if he lived there for over a year. Washington kept the slave for over a year (slaveholders usually either swapped out slaves or sent them to their home state for awhile before the year was up), freeing the slave. While it’s possible that Washington didn’t know the law, it’s more likely he did and used the “oops” defense as a way to free the man. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/24 "2009-07-29T16:08:51Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Well, they recently dug up a tape of Nixion saying that he was against abortion, but that it should be legal in cases of rape or when the baby will be bi-racial, so I think we can safetly put Nixion in the “racist” category. > > And people say it’s hard to find compromise with the abortion issue. Probably true, although I’d put Nixon in the category of racists who didn’t reveal themselves. After all he helped enforce busing and was very progressive on civil rights. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/25 "2009-07-29T16:13:44Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Washington kept the slave for over a year (slaveholders usually either swapped out slaves or sent them to their home state for awhile before the year was up), freeing the slave. While it’s possible that Washington didn’t know the law, it’s more likely he did and used the “oops” defense as a way to free the man. Why? Couldn’t he just say “your free” instead of making the guy wait a year to do it via subterfuge. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/26 "2009-07-29T16:20:51Z")
[Another, on Polk.](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oLOiyWO7P9cC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=%22presidential+views+of+slavery%22&source=bl&ots=WhD8QEa9yM&sig=cXggZla3vUhdWZpF43sLXA9e4II&hl=en) His views are…less than enlightened, stating “This species of population was found among us [in 1776]. It has been entailed upon us by our ancestors, and was viewed as a common evil,” as well as supporting harsh treatment of unruly slaves. However, like many presidents, he held conflicting views and was more guided by political stakes involved in the slavery issues as opposed to direct racism on his part. Speaking of Andrew Jackson as we were, he was arguably one of the most pro-slavery president in U.S. history, he owned and traded in a huge amount of slaves; > [@](#): > > Andrew Jackson owned about 150 slaves at the time of his death. By reviewing letters, plantation records, census documents, and other materials, we have accumulated over 500 names of persons enslaved at The Hermitage or their descendents [http://www.thehermitage.com/index.php?option=com\_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=49](http://www.thehermitage.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=49) Many earlier presidents who viewed the issue as at best a necessary evil (or simply too hot to touch); Washington was likely of this view, writing [, ditto Madison, writing [url=[Full text of "Historical and political essays"](http://www.archive.org/stream/historicalpoliti00lodg/historicalpoliti00lodg_djvu.txt)]“Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labor of slaves.”](there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."[/url).) to just plain evil (Adams being foremost among this view, > [@](#): > > “Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude,” he wrote to William Tudor, “and I am therefore utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territory.” [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1993/3/1993\_3\_86.shtml](http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1993/3/1993_3_86.shtml) JQA was unsurprisingly of this view also, stating [“Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union.”](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZTGsL51IKpIC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=%22Slavery+is+the+great+and+foul+stain+upon+the+North+American+Union&source=bl&ots=285EM7-qk-&sig=JIHefe8kB1YuIpdEpPywjLK_h60&hl=en) Van Buren’s views were a bit [more complex](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZG1GSxeXTFEC&pg=PA98&lpg=PA98&dq=van+buren+slavery&source=bl&ots=fR14PvMrKu&sig=u5acSHrKTO8kzdiwEXHPTXMapwM&hl=en), he owned a slave himself (who ran away - when found, Van Buren sold him to the finder) he was a firm believer in federal non-intervention, but voted against the admission of Missouri as a slave state. His brother Lawrence actively campaigned against slavery. Jackson, however, showed no moral hangups whatsoever, and he was outwardly hostile to abolitionism; > [@](#): > > To achieve its goals, the AAS undertook a number of large projects, many of which were frustrated by Southern opposition. For example, the organization initiated a massive postal campaign designed to appeal to the moral scruples of Southern slaveowners and voters. The campaign flooded the South with antislavery tracts sent through the mails. Although a law that would have excluded antislavery literature from the mails was narrowly defeated in Congress in 1836, pro-slavery forces, with the help of President Andrew Jackson’s administration and local postmasters, effectively ended the dissemination of abolitionist literature in the South. The AAS was similarly frustrated when it petitioned Congress on a variety of subjects related to slavery. Congressional gag rules rendered the many abolitionist petitions impotent. These rules of legislative procedure allowed Congress to table and effectively ignore the antislavery petitions. > **[Abolition - Further Readings, Cross-references](https://law.jrank.org/pages/3905/Abolition.html)** He wrote of the incident; > [@](#): > > “I have read with sorrow and regret that such men live in our country - I might have said monsters - as to be guilty of the attempt to stir up amongst the South the horrors of a servile war - Could they be reached, they ought to be made to atone for this wicked attempt, with their lives. But we are the instruments of, and executors of the law; we have no power to prohibit anything from being transported in the mail that is authorized by the law… (The postmaster should) deliver to no person those inflammatory papers, but those who are really subscribers for them… The postmaster ought to take the names down, and have them exposed through the public journals as subscribers to this wicked plan of exciting the negroes to insurrection and to massacre.” (Jackson, V5. p360-1) [http://www.nas.com/~lopresti/ps7.htm](http://www.nas.com/~lopresti/ps7.htm) It can also be argued that he viewed the issue more as a nagging annoyance than a serious moral issue; > [@](#): > > According to Remini’s third essay, the Jackson legacy concerning slavery was also ambivalent. Arguing that a debate over slavery would disrupt the Union, the Jacksonians sought to defuse the issue by excluding it from public debate, claiming that it had been permanently settled by the Constitution’s clear acceptance of slavery. However, Remini argues, Jackson failed to see the explosive potential of the slavery question as a moral issue that would not go away, viewing it rather as a secondary issue raised by such political enemies as John Quincy Adams and John C. Cahhoun to shatter the Union and impede the march of democracy. [http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/bookPages/9780807116425.html](http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/bookPages/9780807116425.html) In any case, he was a product of the times. His views would not have been seen as racist among his contemporaries, and he was known to treat his slaves with a degree of leniency. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/27 "2009-07-29T17:40:49Z")
Grant owned a slave for a while and his wife Julia owned slaves (4 I believe) until the 13th Amendment went into force in December 1865. They even visited his camp when he was General in Chief of all US Armies. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/28 "2009-07-29T18:18:59Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Why? Couldn’t he just say “your free” instead of making the guy wait a year to do it via subterfuge. IIRC, he was not in a financial position to free him (remember, slaves were chattel and had value – it would be like deciding to give away your car – it’s expensive to replace). Giving away a valuable asset of Mount Vernon would have created a great deal of friction. By “forgetting” the law, he’s not deliberately giving away the slave. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/29 "2009-07-29T18:33:41Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Grant owned a slave for a while and his wife Julia owned slaves (4 I believe) until the 13th Amendment went into force in December 1865. They even visited his camp when he was General in Chief of all US Armies. Grant freed his slave in 1859, after owning him for a year. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/30 "2009-07-29T18:43:08Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > IIRC, he was not in a financial position to free him (remember, slaves were chattel and had value – it would be like deciding to give away your car – it’s expensive to replace). Giving away a valuable asset of Mount Vernon would have created a great deal of friction. By “forgetting” the law, he’s not deliberately giving away the slave. Washington was one of the richest men in the colonies, and owned more then 100 slaves. And who would he have friction with, he owned Mount Vernon outright, so far as I can tell. FWIW, here’s what wikipedia has to say about the issue: > [@](#): > > Pennsylvania had begun an abolition of slavery in 1780, and prohibited non-residents from holding slaves in the state longer than six months. If held beyond that period, the state’s Gradual Abolition Law[62] gave those slaves the power to free themselves. Washington argued (privately) that his presence in Pennsylvania was solely a consequence of Philadelphia’s being the temporary seat of the federal government, and that the state law should not apply to him. On the advice of his attorney general, Edmund Randolph, he systematically rotated the President’s House slaves in and out of the state to prevent their establishing a six-month continuous residency. This rotation was itself a violation of the Pennsylvania law, but the President’s actions were not challenged. I’m skeptical he used this law to purposely free a slave. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/31 "2009-07-29T19:21:02Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > His adoped son was AmerIndian, for example. A son he adopted because he was orphaned, and he was orphaned because Jackson’s men had just killed his family. Some of his slaves recalled him as a very kind master, though it’s worth remembering that these views were filtered through romantic lenses by his biographers. Like most large slaveowners he was seriously in debt. Totally off the subject, Hannah Jackson was one of last surviving slaves and one who remembered him kindly. Does anybody else think there’s a resemblance between[her](http://www.sitemason.com/files/lxSvFm/HannahJackson.jpg)and [Jackson](http://gregorear.com/images/jackson.jpg)? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/32 "2009-07-29T19:23:02Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Grant freed his slave in 1859, after owning him for a year. Which (and I’m not being sarcastic) showed amazing character on his part. Grant was famously so broke the Christmas before the war that he pawned his watch to buy presents for his children, and yet he’d set free the most expensive asset he’d ever had. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/33 "2009-07-29T19:26:36Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Gee, you’re not the least bit modest in your demands, are you? And without so much as a please. And to think how rude he was when Goldwater had a reference question ([cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay#LeMay_and_UFOs)). ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/34 "2009-07-29T20:01:02Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > A son he adopted because he was orphaned, and he was orphaned because Jackson’s men had just killed his family. That may be, but the fact that jackson would do so at all is both unusual and speaks a great deal about the complexities of the man. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/35 "2009-07-29T21:33:26Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Which (and I’m not being sarcastic) showed amazing character on his part. Grant was famously so broke the Christmas before the war that he pawned his watch to buy presents for his children, and yet he’d set free the most expensive asset he’d ever had. When he was still on the firm, he’d hire free blacks to cut wood for him, and he got criticized by his neighbors for paying them too much. As a confederate sympathizer who knew him before the war said, Grant “fool[ed] away his money paying them d-d free niggers ten and fifteen cents a cord too much…and a-spoiling them.” He also reportedly stopped a neighbor from whipping one of the neighbor’s slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/36 "2009-07-29T23:00:09Z")
An interesting tidbit: Teddy Roosevelt was raised in NYC but his mother (and thus Eleanor Roosevelt’s grandmother), Martha Bulloch, was a ‘halfbreed southern belle’ (i.e. her mother was a Connecticut Yankee and her father was a very rich plantation and slave owning Georgian)\*. His grandfather was dead by the time the war broke out but he had many maternal relatives who fought on the southern side. One of his mentors was Joseph Wheeler, the Confederate cavalry general (who like TR’s mother was of “New England Yankee by way of Georgia and NYC” background), and he actually persuaded Wheeler (by then a Senator) to come out of retirement and back into the saddle during the Cuban campaigns. (Wheeler was the only Confederate general to later serve as a general in the U.S. forces [albeit volunteer vs. regular military].) I have no idea how much if any his mother’s history and southern connection informed his views. (Martha died long before her granddaughter Eleanor was born but Eleanor did visit [Bulloch Hall](http://www.bullochhall.org/)and the Georgia relatives while growing up.) Confederate relatives and Presidents: Woodrow Wilson was the closest in ancestry to a Confederate ancestor (his Ohio born father was a Confederate military chaplain, though most of his relatives served in the Union side). Harry S Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson were grandsons of Confederates and Jimmy Carter the great grandson. Truman’s mother famously refused to sleep in Lincoln’s bed while LBJ’s grandfather’s animosity towards the KKK after the war is well documented and was oft cited by him. (I took [this](http://www.findagrave.com/photos/2007/270/21810608_119102553950.jpg)and many other pics of Ladybird Johnson’s ancestral home which is located a short walk from my grandfather’s house in Billingsley, Alabama- _extremely_ eccentric family and at one time a gorgeous house [still has the stained glass ceiling, though broken]; per scuttlebutt, but some of it fairly believable, she has many biracial relatives in the immediate area.) Jimmy Carter had several great and great-great-grandfathers in the Confederate forces, at least one of whom lived into his lifetime. Clinton and Obama are distant descendants of Confederates as well but time and generations I’m sure long removed them from being much remembered if at all in the family circles. \*It is claimed- at her family mansion Bulloch Hall among other places- that Martha Bulloch was the basis for Scarlett O’Hara. How this claim can be made with a straight face I’m not sure; both were daughters of rich planters and that’s where it ends. Martha “weathered” the Civil War in an upper middle class townhome in NYC, not exactly the “I’ll never be hungry again” scorched earth of Tara, thus she’s about as much the basis for Scarlett as Elliot Ness was for Barney Fife. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/37 "2009-07-30T01:16:11Z")
David McCullough wrote in _Mornings on Horseback_ that the young T.R. delighted at bedtime in praying loudly for a Union victory in the Civil War, just to get a rise out of his Confederate-sympathizing mom. He was also later embarrassed that his dad, a hard-driving businessman, had hired a substitute (as was legal) to go in his stead to fight in the war. Mrs. Roosevelt’s brothers became Confederate business agents in Europe who arranged for the construction of commerce raiders like the CSS _Alabama_, IIRC. Later, T.R. became a big Lincoln admirer, and even wore a borrowed ring with strands of Lincoln’s hair in it at his 1905 Inauguration. Jimmy Carter’s dad was well-known in his day for his stands against the Klan. One story I read was that the Klan came around asking for a contribution, and Jimmy’s dad said, “I’ve got $10 in my pocket, but I’d flush it down the toilet before I’d give it you.” Pretty brave in that time and place. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/38 "2009-07-30T02:38:14Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Confederate relatives and Presidents: John Tyler became a delegate to the Provisional Confederate Congress, and was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died before he could take his seat. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/39 "2009-07-30T02:57:05Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > David McCullough wrote in _Mornings on Horseback_ that the young T.R. delighted at bedtime in praying loudly for a Union victory in the Civil War, just to get a rise out of his Confederate-sympathizing mom. He was also later embarrassed that his dad, a hard-driving businessman, had hired a substitute (as was legal) to go in his stead to fight in the war. Mrs. Roosevelt’s brothers became Confederate business agents in Europe who arranged for the construction of commerce raiders like the CSS _Alabama_, IIRC. Later, T.R. became a big Lincoln admirer, and even wore a borrowed ring with strands of Lincoln’s hair in it at his 1905 Inauguration. > > Jimmy Carter’s dad was well-known in his day for his stands against the Klan. One story I read was that the Klan came around asking for a contribution, and Jimmy’s dad said, “I’ve got $10 in my pocket, but I’d flush it down the toilet before I’d give it you.” Pretty brave in that time and place. I read the story about Carter and flushing ten bucks down the toilet rather than give it to the Klan (although I think the version I read said the group asking for the $$$ was something called the “White Citizens Council”) only I read that it was Jimmy Carter himself (rather than his father) who was the one to tell the racists that message… ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2009, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624/40 "2009-07-30T05:56:47Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > I read the story about Carter and flushing ten bucks down the toilet rather than give it to the Klan (although I think the version I read said the group asking for the $$$ was something called the “White Citizens Council”) only I read that it was Jimmy Carter himself (rather than his father) who was the one to tell the racists that message… The “new” KKK- the one that resurrected in the early 20th century- was mostly comprised of- pardon the term- white trash (i.e. poor, uneducated, angry whites who were at the bottom of the white socioeconomic rungs and to whom the color of their skin was the only social advantage they had over any one). In most communities a minister or judge or bank officer or school principal would probably never actually join the Klan and would most certainly never want it known that they had. On the other hand, the White Citizens Council (WCC)- there was one in any community of any size- was different. It was the organization of “respectable” citizens- their meetings and attendees could be listed in newspapers without anybody getting upset. They were every bit as racist/separatist as the Klan, but they had nicer living room furniture and manners. They were devoted to “upholding tradition” and the existing laws, not to breaking laws. Of course there was a good bit of “beneath the sheets” interaction between the two and there was overlap in membership. The WCC would never dream of doing anything illegal and when somebody was beaten half to death or murdered they’d denounce it in the papers as being just horrible and unChristian (and probably due to northern agitators). Of course if the KKK burned a cross on a lawn or committed vandalism or whatever, well, ‘boys will be boys’. And of course if prosecuted the Klansmen would like as not have a judge who was a member of the WCC. It was a sickening- no pun intended- whitewashing mechanism that buffered “polite society” from the violent thugs of the Klan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racial-views-of-the-presidents/504624.md?page=3)