IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1063 
Raising a question of the privileges of the House. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 23, 2020 
Mr. GOHMERT (for himself, Mr. BIGGS, Mr. HICE of Georgia, Mr. WEBER of 
Texas, Mr. HARRIS, and Mr. CRAWFORD) submitted the following resolu-
tion; which was referred to the Committee on House Administration 
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 it here in 
order for the U.S. House of Representatives to avoid deg-
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•HRES 1063 IH 
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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•HRES 1063 IH 
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 sup-
port and 0 percent Democrat support in Congress; the 
15th Amendment, giving freed slaves the right to vote, 
passed in 1870 with 100 pecent Republican support and 
0 percent Democrat support in Congress; 
Whereas Democrats systematically suppressed African-Ameri-
cans’ right to vote, and by specific example in the 1902 
Constitution of the State of Virginia, actually disenfran-
chised 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 Republican 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 supported al-
most exclusively by Virginia Democrats; 
Whereas Virginia’s 1902 Constitution was engineered by Car-
ter Glass, future Democratic Party U.S. Representative, 
Senator, and even Secretary of the Treasury under Dem-
ocrat 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 
[African-American] Negro voter who can be gotten rid of 
legally.’’; 
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•HRES 1063 IH 
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, 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 free-
doms 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 and combat bigotry’’; the men depicted 
in the portraits were Democrat Robert M.T. Hunter, 
Democrat Howell Cobb, Democrat James L. Orr and 
Democrat Charles F. Crisp: Now, therefore, be it 
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•HRES 1063 IH 
Resolved, 
(1) That the Speaker of the House of Rep-
resentatives shall remove any item that names, sym-
bolizes or mentions any political organization or 
party that has ever held a public position that sup-
ported slavery or the Confederacy, from any area 
within the House wing of the Capitol or any House 
office building, and shall donate any such item or 
symbol to the Library of Congress; and 
(2) that any political organization or party that 
has ever held a public position that supported slav-
ery or the Confederacy shall either change its name 
or be barred from participation in the House of Rep-
resentatives. 
Æ 
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