262 a short history of the united states
retained control of both houses of Congress. He scored 457 electoral
and 35 , 590 , 472 popular votes to Stevenson’s 73 electoral and 26 , 029 , 752
popular votes. Eisenhower became the first candidate to win the presi-
dency since the election of 1848 whose political party failed to carry ei-
ther house of Congress.
Following his election, Eisenhower asked Congress to enact legisla-
tion to protect the civil rights of American citizens. But this proved to
be exceedingly difficult because of the stiff opposition of southerners in
both the House and Senate. The civil rights movement of the 1950 s and
1960 s, following the lead of Dr. King, was basically nonviolent. Civil
disobedience became a very effective strategy for showing the Ameri-
can people, via television, how African-Americans were denied their
basic rights as citizens, especially in the South. Passive demonstrators
were often assaulted by baton- wielding police and attack dogs as the
nation watched these appalling confrontations on television at night.
Congress could no longer disregard the rising indignation of the
electorate over its failure to pass civil rights legislation. Finally an ef-
fective bill was introduced in the House that was later watered down in
the Senate to provide the Civil Rights Act of 1957. This legislation cre-
ated the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice and set up
a Commission on Civil Rights. It empowered the attorney general to
seek court injunctions against those accused of preventing citizens
from exercising their voting rights. Those accused would be tried in
federal court by a jury of their peers. Unfortunately, it was a very weak
bill and proved to be all but useless. Discriminatory practices contin-
ued in the South without letup. Those registrars accused of violating
the law were tried by all-white juries and acquitted. And the Civil
Rights Act of 1957 did not appreciably increase the number of regis-
tered African-American voters over the next several years. Still, Con-
gress had passed the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction. And as
Lyndon Johnson said so graphically, “Once you break the virginity, it’ll
be easier next time.”
Five days prior to the President’s signing this legislation, the fi rst
outright defi ance of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Brown case oc-
curred on September 3 , 1957 , when the governor of Arkansas, Orval E.
Faubus, called out the National Guard in an attempt to prevent the
integration of a high school in Little Rock. Much as Eisenhower