It is time to answer some of the political venality, the innuendo, the false implications which have sprung up in connection with the Civil Rights proposals. In my judgment, they are as deliberate as they are false; they are as calculated as they are shameful. It is incredible that men in high places would stoop to initiate such things.

As an example, I cite the cartoon in the New York Herald Tribune of July 9, 1963, showing the Republican Party as a character on his death bier with lilies in his hand labeled [sic] "Lily Whites." The cartoon bears the caption "Voice Of The Future?" The insinuation is equally clear also. Unless the Republicans conform to the demands of the Administration and provide the votes necessary to approve the Administration program it will mean and odious tag for the Party and it's demise. That may be the view of Mr. Whitney, Mr. Thayer and their associates even as it might have been the view of their predecessor Horace Greeley a 100 years ago and it might well be that they are as short-sighted, as erroneous and as uncomprehending as Mr. Greeley.

First, let me point out that in this Senate are 67 members bearing the Democrat label. It takes only a majority to enact the Administration bill, namely 51. It takes 67 to impose cloture if cloture is needed. I say to the President, that his Party has enough members to do both jobs. If as he said to me, the job cannot be done without Republicans, perhaps he should turn the reins of gov't over to Republicans. With such a top-heavy majority, we would not find it necessary to turn to his Party for results.

Secondly, let me refresh the liberal Democrats on some of their own traditions. You would brand us as the Lily White Party and sow cleavage in our country, even though are record on Civil Rights will stand up beside your record at anytime. But go back a little. In June of 1860, you convened at Baltimore and nominated Stephen A. Douglas from my own state for the Presidency on your ticket. This is the same Stephen A. Douglas who stood at Charlestown, Illinois on Sept. 18, 1858 in one of the great debates with Abraham Lincoln and said:

"I say that this gov't was established on the white basis. It was made for white men, for the benefit of white men and for their posterity forever and never should be administered by any except white men."

There is your tradition and yet you would have the effrontery to speak of Republicans as the Lily White Party. Who may I ask freed the slaves? Who may I ask set in motion the Emancipation Proclamation? Who may I ask initiated the 13th,14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution to provide the safeguards for their freedom and equality? Who initiated the first meaningful and substantial Civil Rights legislation in 80 years if it was not done by President Eisenhower? Who gave impetus to the School desegregation cases if it was not a Republican Attorney General?

But you would have us throw conviction overboard and ignore the Constitution in the same blythe [sic] way in which you are willing to ignore it if and when it suits your purpose. And you would have us do it by making it appear that we betray the patron saint of your party, Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps you should read your history a little more carefully. You might find another PROFILE IN COURAGE. That impatient, angry old man Horace Greeley, operating thro a White House grapevine -- and refusing to go to Washington and see President Lincoln -- used his notorious "PRAYER OF THE TWENTY MILLIONS" to berate Lincoln, to express his pain and disappointment that greater progress was not being made in the liberation of the slaves. That open letter of Greeley's appeared while the Emancipation Proclamation was already written. But Lincoln chose to answer Greeley by direct letter on August 22, 1862 and set forth his estimate of his official duty. In that letter he said,

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not to save or destroy slavery... What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union... I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."

We have a duty and a view of our duty. For one thing, it is to respect the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court as the law of the land, especially so when uttered in a line of cases involving a construction of the Constitution of the United States. Is it for us to legislate on a speculation as to what this instant Court will do, as the Attorney General seems to be doing. Is our regard for the Court a betrayal of Lincoln? Is our devotion to the Constitution a betrayal of Lincoln? Is our conviction that Title II of the Administrations Bill is unconstitutional a betrayal of Lincoln?

All this gives point to one thing -- an election if coming. What can be done to smear the Republican Party? In a paraphrase of one of your leaders long ago, you shall not press a false crown of thorns upon us; you shall not crucify us upon a cross of color. On this issue, we shall be glad to go to the people, not in the streets as you would have it but at the Ballot box for this is still a government by all of the people, for a all of the people and by all of the people.