Sam Ervin and the Constitution: Paradox or Synthesis? (2011)

Undergraduate: George "Lawson" Kuehnert

Faculty Advisor: James Leloudis
Department: History

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Working under a UNC-Chapel Hill Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) and a Taylor Honors Mentored Research Fellowship, I concluded this summer a ten-week historical research project studying the political philosophy and constitutional decision-making paradigm of North Carolina’s beloved and controversial U.S. Senator, Sam J. Ervin Jr. My research evaluated Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr.’s constitutional philosophy and its implications for United States public policy through analysis of primary source documents relating to his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (H.R. 7152). A leading member of the Southern Democrat senatorial bloc in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, Senator Ervin’s strong convictions on matters of race, civil liberties, and the Constitution influenced lawmaking across the political spectrum. My research in Ervin’s senate and private papers at the Southern Historical Collection of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library showed that he was not, as his southern senatorial colleagues often were, confused in his devotion to what may best be termed the “common good” of America. My research uncovered a man whose fundamental principles where irreconcilable with the zeitgeist of his era but whose conservatism and trenchant opposition to civil rights were not, as previous research claimed, a thinly disguised veil of racism and bigotry.