IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1148 
Raising a question of the privileges of the House. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 24, 2020 
Mr. GOHMERT (for himself, Mr. BIGGS, Mr. HICE of Georgia, Mr. WEBER of 
Texas, Mr. HARRIS, Mr. CRAWFORD, and Mr. NORMAN) submitted the 
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on House Ad-
ministration 
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 here in 
order for the U.S. House of Representatives to avoid deg-
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radation of historical fact and blatant hypocrisy for gen-
erations 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 oth-
ers, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions 
of slavery . . . are calculated to lead to the most alarm-
ing 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 de-
clares 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 re-
solves that ‘‘we recognize the right of the people of all 
the Territories . . . to form a Constitution, with or with-
out 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 run-
away slave on as little as a claimant’s sworn testimony 
of ownership; the Democratic Party Platform of 1860 di-
rectly, in seeking to uphold the Fugitive Slave Act, states 
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that ‘‘the enactments of the State Legislatures to defeat 
the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are hos-
tile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revo-
lutionary 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 percent Republican support and 
0 percent Democrat support in Congress; 
Whereas, Democrats systematically suppressed African-Amer-
icans’ 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 Re-
publican 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 sup-
ported almost exclusively by Virginia Democrats; 
Whereas, Virginia’s 1902 Constitution was engineered by 
Carter Glass, future Democratic Party U.S. Representa-
tive, 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 pre-
cisely what we propose. That, exactly, is what this Con-
vention was elected for—to discriminate to the very ex-
tremity of permissible action under the limits of the fed-
eral Constitution, with a view to the elimination of every 
Negro voter who can be gotten rid of legally.’’; 
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Whereas, in 1912, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson’s 
administration began a racial segregation policy for U.S. 
government employees and, by 1914, the Wilson adminis-
tration’s Civil Service instituted the requirement that a 
photograph be submitted with each employment applica-
tion; 
Whereas, the 1924 Democratic National Convention convened 
in New York City at Madison Square Garden; the con-
vention is commonly known as the ‘‘Klan-Bake’’ due to 
the overwhelming influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 
Democratic Party; 
Whereas, Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
continued Woodrow Wilson’s policy of segregating White 
House staff and maintained separate dining rooms for 
White and Black staffers. He also continued the White 
House Correspondents Association’s ban on credentialing 
Black journalists for White House duties until outside 
pressure from Black publications finally forced a change 
in policy in 1944, the last year of his presidency. Accord-
ing to the American Journal of Public Health, prior to 
his presidency, Roosevelt not only banned Blacks from 
receiving treatment at his polio facility in Warm Springs, 
Georgia, Black staff were forced to live in the basement 
of the facility or in a segregated dormitory while White 
staff lived in the hotel or in surrounding cottages; 
Whereas, Democrat Congressman Howard Smith, former 
chairman of the House Rules Committee introduced the 
‘‘Declaration of Constitutional Principles’’ in a speech on 
the House floor where he attacked the Supreme Court’s 
1954 decision on Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 
(KS) which determined that segregated public schools 
were unconstitutional. Smith’s declaration urged people 
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to utilize all ‘‘lawful means’’ to avoid the ‘‘chaos and con-
fusion’’ which would occur if they desegregated schools. 
History.House.Gov states that ‘‘Under Smith, the Rules 
Committee became a graveyard for numerous civil rights 
initiatives in the 1950s.’’; 
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 Vir-
ginia—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 or-
dered the removal from the Capitol portraits of four pre-
vious Speakers of the House who served in the Confed-
eracy saying that the portraits, ‘‘set back our nation’s 
work to confront a combat bigotry;’’ the men depicted in 
the portraits were Democrat Robert M.T. Hunter, Demo-
crat Howell Cobb, Democrat James L. Orr and Democrat 
Charles F. Crisp: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the Speaker of the House of Rep-
resentatives 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 
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Capitol or any House office building, and shall donate any 
such item or symbol to the Library of Congress. 
Æ 
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