I used to get things done by saying please. Now I dynamite ’em out of my path.
—Huey Long
Daddy’s lifelong ambition of being governor was not just for one four-year term. The problem was that the Alabama Constitution of 1819 prohibited the governor from succeeding himself.
In Daddy’s mind, he needed a second term for the purpose of fueling the engine of his presidential aspirations. Without a second term, he wouldn’t have a strong platform to run on. In retrospect, I can say without a doubt that our family’s situation and finances—where we would live and what we would live off of if he was out of office—never entered his mind.
Still riding high among whites for his “stand,” in June 1963, Daddy suggested to his legislative allies that it was time to pass a succession amendment and let the voters decide if they wanted to keep him around for four more years. The proposal did not pass. The second time around, in August 1964, the same thing happened. While members of the house of representatives were easy to manage, there was a group of recalcitrant state senators who seemed impervious to his shouted demands, determined to stop the Wallace Roadshow before it became the Wallace Dynasty. By September 1965, time was running out. The hoped-for “third time’s a charm” special session was called to order on October 4, less than seven months before the gubernatorial primary. By that time there were no bonds of civility left in the Alabama state capitol between the warring factions of Daddy’s men and his opponents.
Daddy stood in the well of the Alabama house of representatives. Packed crowds in the gallery above waved signs and acted intemperately with hoots, hollers, and heel-stomping. “Let the people decide,” Daddy said.
Why do liberal newspaper editors so viciously attack the idea that the governor might succeed himself? The answer is easy. The liberals want the state destroyed, all power and all benefits to come from a centralized government. They want us to quit doing and start begging. I believe in the cause of freedom. The people of Alabama sent me north and east and west to tell the story of Americanism in the South. It would have been easy to remain in Montgomery in comfort and in peace, but because I believe in the cause of freedom I have gone among wild-eyed fanatics. I have walked through stomping crowds of leftists and I have been cursed by them and I have been beat upon and their spittle has run down my face.
Wallace supporters fled from the capitol into the night, ready to fight for four more years. Daddy’s judge and jury were the people of Alabama, and they had his back. They thought it perfectly reasonable for Daddy to defund road projects, cancel contracts, move the location of a proposed junior college to the other end of the state, and pull liquor advertising from newspapers if that is what it took to whip the troublemakers that disagreed with him back into shape. After all, families stick together, and Governor Wallace was family.
Once again, the succession bill bullied its way through the House but was held up in the Alabama senate with a filibuster. On October 22, 1965, the final vote to break the filibuster was defeated by three votes. Daddy was both stunned and infuriated. It never occurred to him that his behavior toward the holdouts in the Senate had been counterproductive. He had launched public tirades against them in their home districts. He had hurled invective. He had threatened to make their constituents pay. This, of course, had emboldened the rebellious senators to dig in their heels.
In the end, from Daddy’s perspective, it was not all about whether he actually meant to do the things he threatened to do; he just wanted to have his way, and unless the referee catches you breaking the quarterback’s finger in the pileup, it’s just another way to win. The 1965 defeat of the succession bill was personal. Daddy viewed it as an attack on his character and fitness. Rejection was not something he handled well.
None of the state senators who filibustered the succession bill to the end would be returned to service following the 1966 election; they either didn’t run or were overwhelmingly defeated. However, in return for their sacrifice, Alabama would elect its first female governor, and the Wallace Dynasty was assured.