Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 9 P25 pps

Critics point out that some African Americans were not slaves before the Civil War and that other blacks immigrated to the United States since the abolition of slavery.. United States 70

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afire, doused in water, and whipped As late as the 1820s, more than one hundred abolitionist groups operated in the slave states, but by the 1840s, virtually none was left Slavers in the southern states also began to cultivate more ambitious rationales for African slavery Slavery supporters cited essays written by the ancient Greek philosopher ARISTOTLE that declared that slavery was the natural order of things

Aristotle had claimed that slaves were slaves because they had allowed themselves to become enslaved This was just and right, his theory continued, because if those with strong bodies (Africans, to U.S slavers) performed the labor,

those with upright bodies (European colonists and their descendants) would have the time and energy for technological and economic ad-vancement U.S slavery enthusiasts expanded

on the theories of Aristotle and other philoso-phers to explain that it was the Africans’ lot in life to be slaves because it was inherent in their nature to be servile and hardworking Other southern slavers forwent any philosophy of slavery and simply enjoyed the luxuries realized through the enslavement of Africans

Throughout the Civil War, President Lin-coln and the U.S Congress were busy passing federal legislation on the subject of slavery On

Reparations

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT to abolish

slavery, but it has never formally

apolo-gized to African Americans for their

enslavement nor offered financial

repara-tions to compensate them for their

peonage Since the end of the U.S CIVIL

WAR, there have been occasional calls by

African Americans for reparations, but

political and legal efforts have always

failed However, in the 1990s, a new

movement for slavery reparations began

to coalesce, led by a group of scholars

and lawyers This group has been

encouraged by the payment of

repara-tions to Jewish Holocaust victims by

German corporations that employed

slave labor and by the U.S government’s

payment of $60,000 to every Japanese

American person held in detention

camps duringWORLD WAR II Nevertheless,

the slavery reparations issue arouses

strong emotions in those opposed to the

idea In addition, legal doctrines make the

prospect of court victories unlikely

The idea of reparations is rooted in

the field order issued by Union General

William Tecumseh Sherman as he

con-quered several Southern states during the

last months of the Civil War Sherman’s

order authorized the distribution of 40

acres of Southern land to each freed slave

and the loan of a government mule to work the land The promise of“40 acres and a mule” proved illusory, however, as Congress failed to ratify such a program

reclaimed their land, and Southern blacks became sharecroppers, renting out land in return for a meager financial return

A reparations lawsuit against the U.S

TREASURY DEPARTMENT was dismissed in

1915, but in the 1920s Marcus Garvey made reparations part of his Black Na-tionalist program In the 1950s and 1960s, Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, preached black separatism and called on the government to give blacks land as reparations for slavery During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, reparations were ignored, with leaders focusing on political and civil equality

However, by the late 1960s, a new, more radical form of black nationalism started

to emphasize the need for economic justice In 1969 James Forman issued a

“Black Manifesto” that demanded $500 million as reparations“due us as people who have been exploited and degraded, brutalized, killed, and persecuted.” Again, reparations were ignored and the issue appeared dead It was resurrected, how-ever, in 1989, when Representative John

Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced a resolu-tion that sought to establish a commission that would study reparations for African Americans The resolution went nowhere, but Conyers has continued to introduce it every year, to no avail

The modern debate over reparations began in earnest with the publication of Randall M Robinson’s bestseller, The Debt: What America Owes Blacks Robin-son argued that the value of slave labor over the course of 246 years of American slavery easily reached into the trillions of dollars He noted that slaves picked and processed cotton, which fueled com-merce and industry throughout the United States Robinson called on the government to establish independent community trust funds that would dis-tribute money into the community to fund black-owned businesses and to fund education and training programs He disavowed the direct payment of repara-tions to individuals Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree and other lawyers and scholars joined Robinson to

Committee The committee has explored suing the U.S government, and in 2002

it filed suit against several U.S corpora-tions that allegedly profited from slavery during the nineteenth century A 2001

228 SLAVERY

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August 6, 1861, Congress passed the

Confisca-tion Act, which allowed the United States to lay

claim to any property used in insurrection

against it Under this act, slaves who served in

the Confederate army were to be set free upon

capture by Union forces In June 1862 Lincoln

signed a bill passed by Congress that abolished

slavery in all territories owned by the federal

government On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued

theEMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, which declared

that all slaves in the United States were free

persons and that they were to remain free

persons

In April 1865 the Confederate army surrendered to the Union forces This event touched off a flurry of constitutional amend-ments The THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT, which abolished slavery, was ratified by Congress on December 6, 1865 TheFOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, ratified July 9, 1868, was designed to, in part, establish former slaves as full citizens and ensure that no African American would be deprived of any of the privileges and immunities that come with citizenship The Fourteenth Amendment also deleted the offensive three-fifths ratio from the measurement of

efforts, for it requires all insurance

companies doing business in California

to report on any policies issued to

slaveholders prior to 1865 A number of

prominent companies revealed in their

2002 filings that they had issued slave

insurance and thereby profited from

slavery However, in 2005, a federal

district court dismissed the lawsuit

The debate over reparations has

divided along racial lines A 2002 opinion

poll found that 80 percent of African

Americans endorsed a formal apology for

slavery from the U.S government, and 67

percent were in favor of monetary

repara-tions This contrasted sharply with white

respondents; 30 percent of whites

sup-ported an apology, whereas only 4 percent

thought that monetary compensation was

appropriate Opposition to reparations

falls into three main arguments First,

opponents note that all former slaves are

dead and that living descendants do not

deserve payments for their ancestors’

losses This is quite different from the

U.S government’s payments to living

Japanese Americans for their detention

during World War II A second objection

is more practical: Who would get the

money and how much would each person

receive? Critics point out that some African

Americans were not slaves before the Civil

War and that other blacks immigrated to

the United States since the abolition of

slavery It would be exceedingly difficult to

sort out the descendants of slaves A third

objection centers on making current white

Americans liable for the sins of the past

Critics note that millions of people entered the United States from Europe, Asia, and South American between 1865 and the present These individuals, as well as the descendants of non-slaveholding Ameri-cans, should not be forced to pay their tax dollars to compensate for a reprehensible system they had nothing to do with In addition, some African American scholars have voiced concerns about the symbolic consequences of seeking reparations They contend that this cause reinforces the role

of blacks as victims and looks to the past rather than the future

Proponents of reparations respond by arguing that financial compensation will not go to individuals, thus eliminating the practical difficulties of identifying clai-mants They also contend that slavery, along with the 100 years of repression and discrimination following the Civil War, have directly injured African Americans living today They point out that the U.S

government is an ongoing organization that is responsible for its actions, whether

or not individuals were present at the time

of the actions in question Finally, they believe that while the money is important, the demand for restitution will encourage the healing of old wounds

Many commentators believe that reparations will not be achieved through the legal system, due to various substan-tive and procedural doctrines In Cato v

United States (70 F.3d 1103 [9th Cir:

1995]), a federal appeals court dismissed

a lawsuit that sought reparations and an apology from the U.S government The court found that it had no jurisdiction to consider the case First, private citizens cannot sue the federal government under the doctrine of sovereign immunity Second, the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the suit because they could not show they were personally injured by slavery The court made clear that generalized class-based grievances cannot be heard in a court of law The court concluded that the plaintiffs should press their claims with Congress

Supporters of reparations dismissed the U.S Senate’s unanimous passage of a resolution in 2009 that apologizes to African Americans for slavery and segre-gation Ogletree stated that the resolution should not be a substitute for repara-tions, saying “That battle will be pro-longed.”

FURTHER READINGS Horowitz, David 2001 Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations for Slavery New York: Encounter.

Robinson, Randall W 2000 The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks New York: Dutton.

——— 2000 The Reckoning: What Blacks Owe Each Other New York: Dutton Winbush, Raymond 2003 Should America Pay? Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations New York: Amistad.

CROSS REFERENCES Civil Rights Movement; Emancipation Proc-lamation; Reconstruction.

SLAVERY 229

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populations in Section 2 of Article I, and declared that debts relating to the loss or emancipation of slaves were illegal and void

The FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, ratified February 3,

1870, gave male African Americans and male former slaves the right to vote

African slavery in the United States contin-ued to haunt the country long after its abolition

In the North,SEGREGATIONof African Americans from the European populations was a reality, if not sanctioned by law Beginning in the 1880s, many southern states enactedBLACK CODES, orJIM CROW LAWS, which restricted the freedom of movement and expression of African Americans and enforced their segregation from the rest of society

Contemporary Issues Surrounding Slavery

Notions of slavery in the United States have expanded to include any situation in which one person controls the life, liberty, and fortune of another person All forms of slavery are now widely recognized as inherently immoral and thoroughly evil Slavery still occurs in various forms, but when it does, accused offenders are aggressively prosecuted Federal statutes punish

by fine or imprisonment the enticement of persons into slavery (18 U.S.C.A § 1583), and the holding to or selling of persons into INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE (§ 1584) In addition, whosoever builds a ship for slave carriage, serves

on a ship carrying slaves, or owns a slave-carrying ship will be fined or imprisoned under 18 U.S.C.A §§ 1582, 1586, and 1587, respectively

The statute 18 U.S.C.A § 1581 prohibits peonage, which is involuntary servitude for the payment of a debt Labor camps are perhaps the most common violators of the law against peonage The operators of some labor camps keep victims for work in fields through impoverished conditions, threats, acts of vio-lence, and alcohol consumption Offenders often provide rudimentary shelter to migrant workers and demand work in return, which can constitute involuntary servitude An individual can also be convicted of sale into involuntary servitude for delivering victims under FALSE PRETENSESto such labor camps

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, much of the debate surrounding slavery related to move-ments urging the U.S government to pay reparations to descendants of slaves Supporters

of this movement suggest that cash payments made to these descendants is justified to com-pensate the victims of slavery for years of hard-ship, harm, and indignities Local governments

in such cities as Dallas, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland have urged Congress to consider this form of payment Opponents of reparations note that the costs of reparations, if given to the extent that some supporters urge, would cost the federal government trillions of dollars Moreover, many critics question how these cash payments would

be made and how recipients would be identified for receiving them

FURTHER READINGS Azmy, Baher 2002 “Unshackling the Thirteenth Amend-ment: Modern Slavery and a Reconstructed Civil Rights Agenda Fordham Law Review 71 (December) Harris, Leslie M 2003 In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863 Chicago: Univ.

of Chicago Press.

Morgan, Edmund S 2003 American Slavery—American Freedom New York: Norton.

Posner, Eric A., and Adrian Vermeule 2003 “Reparations for Slavery and Other Historical Injustices ” Columbia Law Review 103 (April).

Sealey, Geraldine 2000 “Atoning for Slavery.” ABCNews com Available online at <abcnews.go.com/sections/us/ DailyNews/slavery000615.html> (accessed October 4, 2003).

United States Congress Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 2001 Slavery throughout the World: Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, One Hundred Sixth Congress, Second Session, September 28, 2000 Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

CROSS REFERENCES Celia, a Slave; Civil Rights; Civil Rights Acts; Constitution of the United States; Douglass, Frederick; Fugitive Slave Act of 1850; Indenture; Ku Klux Klan; Ku Klux Klan Act; Prigg v Pennsylvania; Republican Party; States’ Rights; Taney, Roger Brooke See also primary documents in “Slavery” section of Appendix.

SLIP DECISION

A copy of a judgment by the U.S Supreme Court

or other tribunal that is printed and distributed almost immediately subsequent to the time that it

is handed down by the court

SLIP LAW

A copy of a bill that is passed by a state legislature and endorsed by the governor, or passed by Congress and signed by the president, and is printed and distributed almost immediately

230 SLIP DECISION

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SMALL BUSINESS

A type of enterprise that is independently owned

and operated, has few employees, does a small

amount of business, and is not predominant in its

area of operation A sole proprietor-owned small

business features the smallest number of

regula-tions compared to other types of businesses, but the

owner is personally liable for the legal and

financial issues that might come about, as opposed

to corporations, where personal assets have some

protections in place

CROSS REFERENCE

Sole Proprietorship.

SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

The Small Business Administration (SBA) is a

federal agency that seeks to aid, counsel, assist,

and protect the interests of small business The

SBA ensures that small business concerns

receive a fair portion of federal government

purchases, contracts, and subcontracts, as well

as of the sales of government property The

agency is best known for its loans to small

business concerns, state and local development

companies, and the victims of floods or other

catastrophes

The SBA was created by the Small Business

Act of 1953 (67 Stat 232[15 U.S.C.A § 631 et

seq.]) and derives its present authority from this

act and the Small Business Investment Act of

1958 (15 U.S.C.A § 661)

Financial Assistance

The SBA provides guaranteed loans to small

businesses to help them finance plant

construc-tion, conversion or expansion, and acquire

equipment, facilities, machinery, supplies, or

materials It also provides them with working

capital Since 1976, farms have been considered

to be small business concerns

The SBA also provides loan guarantees to

finance residential or commercial construction

The administration may finance small firms

that manufacture, sell, install, service, or

dev-elop specific energy measures In an effort to

reach more businesses, the SBA provides loans

and grants to private, nonprofit organizations

that, in turn, make small loans and provide

technical assistance to small businesses

Through its SURETY Bond Guarantee

Pro-gram, the SBA helps to make the contract

bond-ing process accessible to small and emergbond-ing

contractors who find bonding unavailable A bond is posted as a guarantee that the contracted work will be performed If the work is not performed, the money pledged in the bond will

be used to cover the contractor’s default The SBA program guarantees to reimburse the issuer

of the bond up to 90 percent of losses incurred under bid, payment, or performance bonds issued to small contractors on contracts valued

up to $1.25 million

Disaster Assistance

The SBA lends money to help the victims of floods, riots, or other catastrophes who need to repair or replace disaster-damaged property

Direct loans with subsidized interest rates are made to assist individuals, homeowners, busi-nesses, and small agricultural cooperatives without credit elsewhere that have sustained substantial economic injury resulting from natural disasters

Investment Assistance

The administration licenses, regulates, and provides financial assistance to small business investment companies and section 301(d) licensees (formerly minority enterprise small business investment companies) The sole function of these investment companies is to provide venture capital in the form of EQUITY financing, long-term loan funds, and manage-ment services to small business concerns

Government Contracting

The SBA works closely with the purchasing agencies of the federal government and with the leading U.S contractors in developing policies and procedures that will increase the number of contracts awarded to small businesses

The administration has a number of services that help small firms obtain and fulfill ment contracts It sets aside suitable govern-ment purchases for competitive award to small business concerns and provides an appeal procedure for a low-bidding small firm whose ability to perform a contract is questioned by the contracting officer The SBA maintains close ties with prime contractors and refers qualified small firms to them In addition, it works with federal agencies in setting goals for procuring prime contracts and subcontracts for small businesses, especially those owned by women and members of disadvantaged groups

SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 231

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Business Initiatives

The SBA is recognized for its sustained effort to provide education, counseling, and information

to small business owners and prospective own-ers It has increasingly relied on forging partnerships with nongovernmental groups to deliver business education and training pro-grams at low cost For example, the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) provides one-on-one counseling free of charge

The Business Information Center (BIC) program is an innovative approach to providing

a one-stop location for information, education, and training Components of BIC include the latest computer hardware and software, an extensive small business reference library, and

a collection of current management videos

The SBA also produces many pamphlets and other publications on a variety of business and management topics It has also established SBA Online, a toll-free electronic bulletin board for small businesses

Minority Enterprise Development

Sections 7(j) and 8(a) of the Small Business Act provide for the Minority Enterprise Develop-ment Program, designed to promote business ownership by socially and economically disad-vantaged persons Participation is available to small businesses that are at least 51 percent unconditionally owned, controlled, and managed

by one or more individuals determined by the SBA to be socially and economically disadvan-taged Program participants receive a wide variety of services, including management and technical assistance, loans, and federal contracts

Advocacy

The Office of Advocacy serves as a leading advocate within PUBLIC POLICY councils for the more than 25 million small businesses in the United States The office, which is headed by the chief counsel for advocacy, lobbies Congress, the EXECUTIVE BRANCH, and state agencies concerning the interests and needs of small business The office also is a leading source of information about the state of small business and the issues that affect small business success and growth

Women’s Business Ownership

The Office of Women’s Business Ownership (OWBO) provides assistance to the increasing number of female business owners and acts as their advocate in the public and private sector

It is the only office in the federal government specifically targeted to female business owners, assisting them through technical, financial, and management information and business training, skills counseling, and research

The OWBO has established 54 training centers in 28 states and the District of Colum-bia, which provide community-based training for women at every stage of their entrepreneur-ial careers In addition, the office created the Women’s Network for Entrepreneurial Train-ing, a one-year mentoring program linking experienced entrepreneurs with women whose businesses are poised for growth This program

is designed to help women avoid the common mistakes of new business owners

Small Business Development Centers

Small Business Development Centers provide counseling and training to existing and pro-spective small business owners The 950 centers operate in every state, as well as in Puerto Rico, the U.S Virgin Islands, and Guam Each center

is a partner with state government in economic development activities to support and assist small businesses

Threats to the SBA

Between 1953 and 2009, SBA programs assisted almost 25 million small businesses The SBA continues to increase participation by minority-owned businesses by means of its minority small business program and publication of informational materials in Spanish

During the 1990s and early 2000s, several attempts to eliminate the SBA failed Although the agency survived the 1990s by receiving a substantial increase to its budget in 2000, the administration of President GEORGE W BUSH made several efforts to cut the SBA’s loan program

The economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 also affected the SBA In 2008 the secondary market for SBA loans froze, meaning that many lenders became hesitant to issue SBA-backed loans to small businesses The SBA has estimated that roughly half the banks that offer SBA loans resell them, so when the market dried up, small business owners had fewer options As the administration of PresidentBARACK OBAMAbegan

to implement economic recovery plans, the SBA became part of the strategy In June 2009 the SBA announced that it would make several

232 SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

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thousand deferred-payment loans to small

businesses having trouble during the crisis

The SBA has its headquarters in

Washing-ton, D.C It maintains ten regional offices and

has field offices in most major U.S cities

FURTHER READINGS

Lebovits, Gerald 1998 “Equal Justice, Cornerstone of

Freedom, May Be Found in Small Claims Court ”

New York Law Journal (May 1).

Warner, Ralph 2010 Everybody’s Guide to Small Claims

Court 13th ed Berkeley, Calif.: Nolo.

SMART MONEY

Vindictive, punitive, or exemplary damages given

by way of punishment and example, in cases of

gross misconduct of a defendant

SMITH ACT

The Smith Act (54 Stat 670) of 1940

pro-scribed, among other things, the advocacy of the

forcible or violent overthrow of the

govern-ment The act became the analogue of the New

York Criminal Anarchy Act sustained inGITLOW V

NEW YORK(268 U.S 652, 45 S Ct 625, 69 L Ed

1138 [1925]) New York had passed that law in

1902, shortly after the assassination of President

WILLIAM MCKINLEY Between the occupation of

Czechoslovakia and the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact

of 1939, the House of Representatives drafted the

Smith Act because of a fear that there might be a

repetition of the anarchist agitation that had

occurred in 1900 or the antipathy toward alien

radicalism that had surfaced in 1919 Congress was

also concerned about Nazi or Communist subver-sion after war broke out in Europe

Under a 1956 amendment to the Smith Act, if two or more persons conspire to commit any offense described in the statute, each is subject to

a maximum fine of $20,000 or a maximum term

of imprisonment of twenty years, or both, and is ineligible for employment by the United States or its agencies for five years after conviction The Smith Act, as enacted in 1940, contained a CONSPIRACYprovision, but effective September 1,

1948, the Smith Act was repealed and substan-tially reenacted as part of the 1948 recodification, minus the conspiracy provision On June 25,

1948, the federal general conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C.A § 2385) was passed, effective September 1,

1948, which contained the same provisions as the deleted conspiracy section of the original Smith Act except that the showing of overt acts was required and the maximum penalty became five years’ imprisonment instead of ten The general conspiracy statute became operative, with respect to conspiracies to violate the Smith Act, substantially in the same manner and to the same extent as previously

The conspiracy provisions of the Smith Act and its provisions defining the substantive offenses have been upheld An intent to cause the overthrow of the government by force and violence is an essential element of the offenses

The advocacy of peaceful change in U.S social, economic, or political institutions, irrespective

of how fundamental or expansive or drastic such proposals might be, is not forbidden

A conspiracy can exist even though the activities of the defendants do not culminate in

an attempt to overthrow the government by force and violence A conspiracy to advocate overthrow of the government by force or violence, as distinguished from the advocacy itself, can be constitutionally restrained even though it consists of mere preparation because the existence of the conspiracy creates the peril

An agreement to advocate forcible overthrow

of the government is not an unlawful conspiracy under the Smith Act if the agreement does not call for advocacy of action; the act covers only advocacy of action for the overthrow of the government by force and violence rather than advocacy or teaching of theoretical concepts

Those to whom the advocacy is directed must be urged to do something, immediately or in the future, rather than merely to believe in a doctrine

SMITH ACT 235

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A Smith Act conspiracy requires an agreement to teach people to engage in tangible action toward the violent overthrow of the existing government

as soon as possible

An individualDEFENDANTcannot be convicted

of willful adherence to a Smith Act conspiracy unless something said by the defendant or communicated to another person manifests the person’s understanding that, beyond supporting the idea and objective of violent overthrow of the existing government, particular action to that end is to be advocated Advocacy of immediate action is not necessary; advocacy of action at a crucial time in the future when the time for action would seem ripe and success would seem achievable is sufficient There must be a plan to use language reasonably calculated to incite the audience to employ violence against the govern-ment The use of lawful speech, an agreement to share abstract revolutionary doctrine, and an agreement to use force against the government in the future do not constitute a conspiracy to use illegal language Cooperative action on the part

of a number of persons comprising a political party having as its goal the overthrow of the government by force and violence violates the conspiracy provision

The membership clause of the Smith Act has also been the subject of controversy Although the Smith Act does not proscribe mere membership in an organization that advocates the forcible overthrow of the government as a theoretical matter, it does cover active members who, with a CULPABLE knowledge and intent, engage in significant action to achieve this objective or commit themselves to undertake such action Present advocacy of future action for violent overthrow violates the Smith Act, but an expression of sympathy with the

purported illegal conduct is not within the ambit of the statute Guilt cannot be imputed to

a person solely on the basis of his associations Though Congress has never formally repealed the Smith Act, theSUPREME COURT has not upheld a prosecution under the act since

1961 In Scales v United States (367 U.S 203, 81

S Ct 1469, 6 L Ed 2d 782[1961]), the Court upheld the prosecution of a member of the Communist Party

FURTHER READINGS Belknap, Michal R 2005 The Supreme Court under Earl Warren, 1953–1969 Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press.

Cohan, John Alan 2003 “Seditious Conspiracy, the Smith Act, and Prosecution for Religious Speech Advocating the Violent Overthrow of Government ” St John’s Journal of Legal Commentary 17 (winter-spring) CROSS REFERENCES

Anarchism; Communism; Dennis v United States; Red Scare.

vSMITH, MARY LOUISE Mary Louise Smith was a REPUBLICAN PARTY activist who became the first woman to serve as head of the party’s national committee Though she was a political moderate, Smith’s advocacy of ABORTIONrights and theEQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT (ERA) during the 1970s ran counter to the ideology of the party’s conservative majority Her outspoken manner disturbed the Republican Party leadership, which sought to bar her from the 1996 Republican National Convention Smith was born on October 16, 1914, in Eddyville, Iowa She attended Iowa State University, graduating with a degree in social work in 1935 She married Elmer M Smith, a physician, and moved with him to Eagle Grove, Iowa Smith raised three children and soon

1914 Born, Eddyville, Iowa

1935 Graduated from University

of Iowa

1935–36 Worked for Iowa Emergency Relief Administration

1974–77 Served as first woman chair

of Republican National Committee

◆◆

1976 Became the first woman to organize and launch a national presidential nominating convention of a major U.S party

1977 Inducted into Iowa Women's Hall of Fame

1986 Founded the Iowa Peace Institute

◆

1986–92 Served on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood

of Greater Iowa

◆

1995 Iowa State University established the Mary Louise Smith Chair

in Women and Politics

1997 Died, Des Moines, Iowa

1914–18 World War I

1939–45 World War II

1961–73 Vietnam War

1964 Became alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention;

elected to the Republican National Committee

◆

1980 Appointed to U.S Civil Rights Commission

236 SMITH, MARY LOUISE

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became active in local politics, winning a seat on

the Eagle Grove school board

Smith’s life changed when she began to

work in the local Republican Party organization

Soon she was working at the county and state

levels, becoming the leader of the Iowa

Federa-tion of Republican Women In 1964 Smith

became the alternate delegate to the Republican

National Convention and vice-chair of the Iowa

presidential campaign of the party’s nominee,

Senator BARRY M.GOLDWATERof Arizona In that

same year, Smith was elected to the Republican

National Committee, the party’s most powerful

leadership organization

Smith remained a member of the

Republi-can National Committee during the 1960s and

early 1970s After President RICHARD M NIXON

resigned from the presidency in 1974 because of

his involvement in the WATERGATE scandals,

President GERALD R FORD sought to restore the

credibility of the Republican Party and separate

it from the scandals of the Nixon

administra-tion One step he took to accomplish these

objectives was to appoint Smith as chair of the

Republican National Committee in 1974 As the

first woman to head a major U.S political party,

Smith drew national attention for her

commit-ment to abortion rights and the ratification of

the Equal Rights Amendment

In 1976 Smith was the first woman to

organize and call to order a national presidential

nominating convention of a major political

party President Ford won the Republican

nomination, turning back an attempt by

con-servatives to nominate RONALD REAGAN, then

governor of California JIMMY CARTER defeated

Ford in the November election, though, and in

1977 Smith resigned as chair of the party She

remained on the national committee until 1984

President Reagan appointed Smith to the

U.S CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION in 1980 but soon

regretted his action Smith publicly criticized

Reagan for his policies on CIVIL RIGHTS and the

lack of women in his administration Because of

her criticisms, Smith was not re-appointed to

the commission in 1983

Smith returned to Iowa and continued to

seek a more moderate course for Republican

politics, which was dominated by political and

social conservatives Though the ERA failed

to be ratified by its 1982 deadline, Smith

continued to advocate equal rights for women

She also became an outspoken proponent for GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS

By 1996 Smith had been pushed to the margins of the Republican Party Party leaders sought to exclude her from the 1996 Republican National Convention because delegates feared she might make public statements that were out

of step with party ideology At the last minute, a party leader secured her entrance to the con-vention floor by giving her a ticket as a member

of the convention’s security personnel

Though outspoken, Smith was an admired figure in Iowa politics As founder of the Iowa Women’s Political Caucus, she was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in 1977

In 1991 Smith created the Women’s Archives project at Iowa State University, and in 1995 the university honored her by creating the Mary Louise Smith endowed chair in women and politics Smith died on August 22, 1997, in Des Moines, Iowa

FURTHER READINGS Orduna, Arthur “Smith Wants to Take Back GOP.” Des Moines Business Record (August 31, 1992).

Schultz, Jeffrey D., and Laura van Assendelft, eds 1998.

Encyclopedia of Women in American Politics Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Smith, Mary Louise (1914 –1997) Papers and biography at Iowa Women ’s Archives Online Available at http://

www.sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/iwa/findingaids/html/Smith MaryLouise.htm; website home page: http://www.sdrc.

lib.uiowa.edu (accessed August 26,2009).

CROSS REFERENCES Abortion; Equal Rights Amendment; Women ’s Rights.

vSMITH, ROBERT Robert Smith was a lawyer and statesman who served as attorney general of the United States under PresidentTHOMAS JEFFERSON and as SECRE-TARY OF STATEunder PresidentJAMES MADISON Smith’s father, John Smith, a native of Strabane, Ireland, immigrated to the American colonies in the 1740s By 1759, he was living in Baltimore and had established himself as a merchant and shipping agent In 1766, he financed the building of Baltimore’s first market house and the development of the city’s first residential neighborhood He was an advocate

of independence for the American colonies and active in politics and the military

SMITH, ROBERT 237

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