Modern Republicanism Eisenhower's approach to politics was described by contemporaries as "modern Republicanism", which occupied a middle ground between the liberalism of the
New Deal and the conservatism of the Old Guard of the Republican Party. A strong performance in the 1952 elections gave Republicans narrow majorities in both chambers of the
83rd United States Congress. Led by Taft, the conservative faction introduced numerous bills to reduce the federal government's role in American life. Although Eisenhower favored some reduction of the federal government's functions and had strongly opposed President Truman's
Fair Deal, he supported the continuation of
Social Security and other New Deal programs that he saw as beneficial for the common good. Eisenhower presided over a reduction in domestic spending and reduced the government's role in subsidizing agriculture through passage of the
Agricultural Act of 1954, but he did not advocate for the abolition of major New Deal programs such as Social Security or the
Tennessee Valley Authority, and these programs remained in place throughout his tenure as president. Republicans lost control of Congress in the 1954 mid-term elections, and they would not
regain control of either chamber until well after Eisenhower left office. Eisenhower's largely nonpartisan stance enabled him to work smoothly with the speaker of the House,
Sam Rayburn, and Senate majority leader
Lyndon Johnson. Eisenhower was the last President to veto over 100 bills and only two of these vetoes were overridden, both towards the end of his second term. Though liberal members of Congress like
Hubert Humphrey and
Paul Douglas favored expanding federal aid to education, implementing a
national health insurance system, and directing federal assistance to impoverished areas, Rayburn and Johnson largely accepted Eisenhower's relatively conservative domestic policies. In his own party, Eisenhower maintained strong support with moderates, but he frequently clashed with conservative members of Congress, especially over foreign policy. Biographer
Jean Edward Smith describes the relationship between Rayburn, Johnson, and Eisenhower:
Fiscal policy and the economy Eisenhower was a
fiscal conservative whose policy views were close to those of Taft— they agreed that a free enterprise economy should run itself. Nonetheless, throughout Eisenhower's presidency, the top
marginal tax rate was 91 percent—among the highest in American history. When Republicans gained control of both houses of the Congress following the 1952 election, conservatives pressed the president to support tax cuts. Eisenhower however, gave a higher priority to balancing the budget, refusing to cut taxes "until we have in sight a program of expenditure that shows that the factors of income and outgo will be balanced." Eisenhower kept the national debt low and
inflation near zero; three of his eight budgets had a surplus. Eisenhower built on the
New Deal in a manner that embodied his thoughts on efficiency and cost-effectiveness. As president, Eisenhower believed the federal government had a role in supporting public welfare programs. His administration enacted laws to broaden
Social Security coverage (extending benefits to around 10 million additional Americans), raise the federal
minimum wage ($0.75 to $1.00 an hour), and establish the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. While he backed initiatives like
low-income housing, he generally advocated for more restrained federal spending compared to his predecessor, Harry Truman. In a private letter, Eisenhower wrote: The 1950s were a period of economic expansion in the United States, and the
gross national product jumped from $355.3 billion in 1950 to $487.7 billion in 1960. Unemployment rates were also generally low, except for in 1958. There were three
recessions during Eisenhower's administration—July 1953 through May 1954, August 1957 through April 1958, and April 1960 through February 1961, caused by the
Federal Reserve clamping down too tight on the
money supply in an effort to wring out lingering wartime inflation. Meanwhile,
federal spending as a percentage of GDP fell from 20.4 to 18.4 percent—there has not been a decline of any size in federal spending as a percentage of GDP during any administration since. and personal income increased by 45 percent. The result was the
Refugee Relief Act of 1953, which permitted the admission of 214,000
immigrants to the United States from European countries between 1953 and 1956, over and above existing immigration quotas. The old quotas were quite small for Italy and Eastern Europe, but those areas received priority in the new law. The 60,000 Italians were the largest of the refugee groups. Despite the arrival of the refugees, the percentage of foreign-born individuals continued to drop, as the pre-1914 arrivals died out, falling to 5.4% in 1960. The percentage of native-born individuals with at least one foreign-born parent also fell to a new low, at 13.4 percent. Responding to public outcry, primarily from California, about the perceived costs of services for
illegal immigrants from Mexico, the president charged
Joseph Swing, Director of the U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service, with the task of regaining control of the
border. On June 17, 1954, Swing launched
Operation Wetback, the roundup and deportation of undocumented immigrants in selected areas of California, Arizona, and Texas. The
U.S. Border Patrol later reported that over 1.3 million people (a number viewed by many to be inflated) were deported or left the U.S. voluntarily under the threat of deportation in 1954. Meanwhile, the number of Mexicans immigrating legally from Mexico grew rapidly during this period, from 18,454 in 1953 to 65,047 in 1956. Eisenhower's reluctance to publicly oppose McCarthy drew criticism even from many of Eisenhower's own advisers, but the president worked incognito to weaken the popular senator from Wisconsin. In early 1954, after McCarthy escalated his investigation into the Army, Eisenhower moved against McCarthy by releasing a report indicating that McCarthy had pressured the Army to grant special privileges to an associate,
G. David Schine. Eisenhower also refused to allow members of the executive branch to testify in the
Army–McCarthy hearings, contributing to the collapse of those hearings. Following those hearings, Senator
Ralph Flanders introduced a successful measure to censure McCarthy; Senate Democrats voted unanimously for the censure, while half of the Senate Republicans voted for it. The censure ended McCarthy's status as a major player in national politics, and he died of liver failure in 1957. Though he disagreed with McCarthy on tactics, Eisenhower considered Communist infiltration to be a serious threat, and he authorized department heads to dismiss employees if there was cause to believe those employees might be disloyal to the United States. Under the direction of Dulles, the State Department purged over 500 employees. With Eisenhower's approval, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stepped up domestic surveillance efforts, establishing
COINTELPRO in 1956. In 1957, the Supreme Court handed down a series of decisions that bolstered constitutional protections and curbed the power of the
Smith Act, resulting in a decline of prosecutions of suspected Communists during the late 1950s. In 1953, Eisenhower refused to commute the
death sentences of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, two U.S. citizens who were convicted in 1951 of providing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. This provoked a worldwide outburst of picketing and demonstrations in favor of the Rosenbergs, along with editorials in otherwise pro-American newspapers and a plea for clemency from the pope. Eisenhower, supported by public opinion and the media at home, ignored the overseas demand. The Rosenbergs were executed via electric chair in July 1953. Among Eisenhower's objectives in not directly confronting McCarthy was to prevent McCarthy from dragging the
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) into McCarthy's witch hunt for communists, which might interfere with the AEC's work on
hydrogen bombs and other weapons programs. In December 1953, Eisenhower learned that one of America's nuclear scientists,
J. Robert Oppenheimer, had been accused of being a spy for the
Soviet Union. Although Eisenhower never really believed that these allegations were true, in January 1954 he ordered that "a blank wall" be placed between Oppenheimer and all defense-related activities. The
Oppenheimer security hearing was conducted later that year, resulting in the physicist losing his security clearance. The matter was controversial at the time and remained so in later years, with Oppenheimer achieving a certain martyrdom. The case would reflect poorly on Eisenhower as well, but the president had never examined it in any detail and had instead relied excessively upon the advice of his subordinates, especially that of AEC chairman
Lewis Strauss.
Civil rights First term In the 1950s, African Americans in the South faced mass disenfranchisement and
racially segregated schools, bathrooms, and drinking fountains. Even outside of the South, African Americans faced employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and high rates of poverty and unemployment. Civil rights had emerged as a major national and global issue in the 1940s, partly due to the negative example set by
Nazi Germany. Segregation damaged relations with African countries, undercut U.S. calls for
decolonization, and emerged as a major theme in Soviet propaganda. After General Eisenhower had desegregated Army units in the European Theater of Operations in 1944, President Truman continued the process of
desegregating the
Armed Forces in 1948, but actual implementation had been slow. Southern Democrats strongly resisted integration, and many Southern leaders had endorsed Eisenhower in 1952 after the latter indicated his opposition to federal efforts to compel integration. Upon taking office, Eisenhower moved quickly to end resistance to desegregation of the military by using government control of spending to compel compliance from military officials. "Wherever federal funds are expended," he told reporters in March, "I do not see how any American can justify a discrimination in the expenditure of those funds." Later, when Secretary of the Navy
Robert B. Anderson stated in a report, "The Navy must recognize the customs and usages prevailing in certain geographic areas of our country which the Navy had no part in creating," Eisenhower responded, "We have not taken and we shall not take a single backward step. There must be no second class citizens in this country." Eisenhower also sought to end discrimination in federal hiring and in Washington, D.C., facilities. Despite these actions, Eisenhower continued to resist becoming involved in the expansion of voting rights, the desegregation of public education, or the eradication of employment discrimination.
E. Frederic Morrow, the lone black member of the White House staff, met only occasionally with Eisenhower, and was left with the impression that Eisenhower had little interest in understanding the lives of African Americans. Thomas Borstelmann later reinforced this assessment of Eisenhower's character, detailing how Eisenhower had a limited personal commitment to the civil rights movement. Borstelmann also explains that due to his concerns about how the race situation would reflect on the US in the context of the Cold War, Eisenhower did support some reforms, but they were often cautious. Derek Catsam argues how this weak commitment explains why President Eisenhower did not speak out against racism as much as the political environment may have allowed, especially after the
Brown vs Board of Education ruling. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court handed down its
landmark ruling in
Brown v. Board of Education, declaring state laws establishing separate
public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. Right before the decision passed, Eisenhower's
Department of Justice filed an
amicus brief in favor of desegregation in the landmark case. Nevertheless, Eisenhower told
Chief Justice Earl Warren, in private, that "These [southern whites] are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes." After the decision, Eisenhower condemned the Supreme Court's holding, in private, stating that he believed it "set back progress in the South at least fifteen years." The president's public response promised to enforce the decision, but he did not praise the decision, saying "The Supreme Court has spoken and I am sworn to uphold the constitutional processes in this country and I will obey." Over the succeeding six years of his presidency, author
Robert Caro notes, Eisenhower would never "publicly support the ruling; not once would he say that
Brown was morally right". His silence left civil rights leaders with the impression that Eisenhower did not care much about the day-to-day plight of blacks in America, and it served as a source of encouragement for segregationists vowing to resist school desegregation. suggested by Dudziak, suggesting that Eisenhower's priority could have been protecting international reputation. The
Death of Emmett Till in 1955 was another landmark moment in the Civil Rights Movement. Following Emmett's death, his mother, Mamie Till, wrote to Eisenhower asking for support on the matter but received no response.
Second term escort the
Little Rock Nine to
Central High School in Arkansas, September 1957 As Southern leaders continued to resist desegregation, Eisenhower sought to answer calls for stronger federal action by introducing a civil rights bill. The bill included provisions designed to increase the protection of African American voting rights; approximately
80% of African Americans were disenfranchised in the mid-1950s. The civil rights bill passed the House relatively easily, but faced strong opposition in the Senate from Southerners, and the bill passed only after many of its original provisions were removed. Though some black leaders urged him to reject the watered-down bill as inadequate, Eisenhower signed the
Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law. It was the first federal law designed to protect African Americans since the end of
Reconstruction. The act created the
United States Commission on Civil Rights and established a
civil rights division in the Justice Department, but it also required that defendants in voting rights cases receive a
jury trial. The inclusion of the last provision made the act ineffectual, since white jurors in the South would not vote to convict defendants for interfering with the voting rights of African Americans. on September 9, 1957 Eisenhower hoped that the passage of the Civil Rights Act would, at least temporarily, remove the issue of civil rights from the forefront of national politics, but events in Arkansas would force him into action. The
school board of
Little Rock, Arkansas created a federal court-approved plan for desegregation, with the program to begin implementation at
Little Rock Central High School. Fearing that desegregation would complicate his re-election efforts, Governor
Orval Faubus mobilized the
National Guard to prevent nine black students, known as the "
Little Rock Nine", from entering Central High. Though Eisenhower had not fully embraced the cause of civil rights, he was determined to uphold federal authority and to prevent an incident that could embarrass the United States on the international stage. The pressures of the Cold War were obviously on Eisenhower's mind, seen by his statement in a speech to the nation saying: 'Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation.' Mary L. Dudziak explains the importance of the Cold War in Eisenhower's decision to intervene in the Little Rock crisis. She argues that Eisenhower did not because of a belief in the principles of racial desegregation, but rather the impact that the crisis was having on US prestige abroad, and the way in which the Soviet Union was able to use it as propaganda. In addition to Faubus's refusal to withdraw the National Guard, a mob prevented the black students from attending Central High. In response, Eisenhower signed Executive order
10730, which federalized the
Arkansas National Guard and ordered them to support the integration after which they protected the African American students in defiance of the Governor's command. Furthermore, Eisenhower also sent the Army into Little Rock, who also ensured that the Little Rock Nine could attend Central High. Defeated, Faubus derided Eisenhower's actions, claiming that Little Rock had become "occupied territory", and in 1958 he shut down all Little Rock high schools in retaliation, though the shutdown was temporary. Towards the end of his second term, Eisenhower proposed another civil rights bill designed to help protect voting rights, but Congress once again passed a bill with weaker provisions than Eisenhower had requested. Eisenhower signed the bill into law as the
Civil Rights Act of 1960. By 1960, 6.4% of Southern black students attended integrated schools and thousands of black voters had registered to vote, but millions of African Americans remained disenfranchised.
Lavender Scare Eisenhower's administration contributed to the McCarthyist
Lavender Scare with President Eisenhower issuing his
Executive Order 10450 in 1953. During Eisenhower's presidency, thousands of lesbian and gay applicants were barred from federal employment and over 5,000 federal employees were fired under suspicions of being
homosexual. From 1947 to 1961, the number of firings based on sexual orientation were far greater than those for membership in the Communist party, As Ellen Schrecker argues, when the Cold War began to heat up, due to events like the outbreak of the Korean War, it provided justification for more pervasive and aggressive anti-Communist campaigns. The cover of Cold War security threats provided space for figures like McCarthy to promote increased government intervention. David Johnson explains how the Lavender Scare fits into this framework, arguing that homosexuals became victims of the widened definition of a security threat, at a time when Americans were becoming increasingly alarmed of both internal and external threats.
Atoms for Peace Eisenhower gave the
Atoms for Peace speech to the
United Nations General Assembly on December 8, 1953, advocating for constructive use of
nuclear fission for
electrical energy and
nuclear medicine instead of
nuclear arms race proliferation. The speech lead to the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954 which allowed the civilian world to develop nuclear fission technology for peaceful and prosperous purposes.
Infrastructure Interstate Highway System {{listen One of Eisenhower's most enduring achievements was the
Interstate Highway System, which Congress authorized through the
Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Historian
James T. Patterson describes the act as the "only important law" passed during Eisenhower's first term aside from the expansion of Social Security. In 1954, Eisenhower appointed General
Lucius D. Clay to head a committee charged with proposing an interstate highway system plan. The president's support for the project was influenced by his experiences as a young Army officer crossing the country as part of the
1919 Army Convoy. Summing up motivations for the construction of such a system, Clay stated, Clay's committee proposed a 10-year, $100 billion program, which would build 40,000 miles of
divided highways linking all American cities with a population of greater than 50,000. Eisenhower initially preferred a system consisting of
toll roads, but Clay convinced Eisenhower that toll roads were not feasible outside of the highly populated coastal regions. In February 1955, Eisenhower forwarded Clay's proposal to Congress. The bill quickly won approval in the Senate, but House Democrats objected to the use of public
bonds as the means to finance construction. Eisenhower and the House Democrats agreed to instead finance the system through the
Highway Trust Fund, which itself would be funded by a
gasoline tax. In long-term perspective the Interstate Highway System was a remarkable success, that has done much to sustain Eisenhower's positive reputation. In larger cities poor rental neighborhoods were paved over—the land owners were compensated but not the black and poor white residents. Otherwise the system has been well received in retrospect. As the nation's
rail system for passengers collapsed, the new highways created opportunities for city workers to commute from
suburbia and delivery trucks to reach towns remote from the rail net. Suburbs became even more attractive as thousands of new
subdivisions provided better schools and larger, cheaper housing than was available in the overcrowded central cities.
Shopping malls were invented around 1960, and flourished for a half century. Tourism dramatically expanded as well, creating a demand for more
service stations,
motels,
restaurants and
visitor attractions. There was much more long-distance movement to the
Sunbelt for winter vacations, or for permanent relocation. In rural areas, towns and small cities off the grid lost out as shoppers followed the interstate, and new factories were located where land was cheap, workers could drive instead of taking the
city bus, and trucks were no longer slowed by clogged street traffic.
St. Lawrence Seaway The Wiley-Dander Seaway Act, signed by President Eisenhower on May 13, 1954, authorized the U.S. government to work jointly with the
government of Canada to create a deep-water 114-mile navigation channel in the
St. Lawrence River between
Montreal and
Ogdensburg, New York. The
St. Lawrence Seaway enabled large ships and tankers to sail directly from the
Atlantic Ocean to
Duluth, Minnesota on the
Great Lakes. The completed seaway resulted in lower costs for shipping goods to and from the Midwest.
Space program and education briefs President Eisenhower at the front of the S1 Stage (first Stage) of the
Saturn I vehicle at the
Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) on September 8, 1960. In 1955, in separate announcements four days apart, both the United States and the Soviet Union publicly announced that they would launch artificial Earth
satellites within the next few years. The July 29, announcement from the White House stated that the U.S. would launch "small Earth circling satellites" between July 1, 1957, and December 31, 1958, as part of the American contribution to the
International Geophysical Year. Americans were astonished when October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched its
Sputnik 1 satellite into
orbit. Three months later, a nationally televised test of the American
Vanguard TV3 missile failed in an embarrassing fashion; the missile was facetiously referred to as "Flopnik" and "Stay-putnik". To many, the success of the Soviet satellite program suggested that the Soviet Union had made a substantial leap forward in technology that posed a serious threat to U.S. national security. While Eisenhower initially downplayed the gravity of the Soviet launch, public fear and anxiety about the perceived technological gap grew. Americans rushed to build nuclear bomb shelters, while the Soviet Union boasted about its new superiority as a world power. The president was, as
British prime minister Harold Macmillan observed during a June 1958 visit to the U.S., "under severe attack for the first time" in his presidency. Economist
Bernard Baruch wrote in an open letter to the
New York Herald Tribune titled "The Lessons of Defeat": "While we devote our industrial and technological power to producing new model automobiles and more gadgets, the Soviet Union is conquering space. ... It is Russia, not the United States, who has had the imagination to hitch its wagon to the stars and the skill to reach for the moon and all but grasp it. America is worried. It should be." The launch spurred a series of federal government initiatives ranging from defense to education. Renewed emphasis was placed on the
Explorers program (which had earlier been supplanted by
Project Vanguard) to launch an American satellite into orbit; this was accomplished on January 31, 1958, with the successful launch of
Explorer 1. In February 1958, Eisenhower authorized formation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, later renamed the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), within the
Department of Defense to develop
emerging technologies for the U.S. military. The new agency's first major project was the
Corona satellite, which was designed to replace the U-2 spy plane as a source of photographic evidence.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) In April 1958, Eisenhower asked Congress to pass legislation to create a civilian
space agency to oversee the nation's space activities. On July 29, 1958, Eisenhower signed the
National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 establishing the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It represented a consensus that he forged among key interest groups, including scientists committed to basic research; the Pentagon which had to match the Soviet military achievement; corporate America looking for new business; and a strong new trend in public opinion looking up to
space exploration. NASA took over the space technology research started by DARPA, as well as the Air Force's manned satellite program,
Man In Space Soonest, which was renamed as
Project Mercury. The project's
first seven astronauts were announced on April 9, 1959.
National Defense Education Act In September 1958, the president signed into law the
National Defense Education Act, which provided $1 billion over 4 years to be infused into 40,000
loans, 40,000
scholarships, and 1,500
graduate fellowships. In 1953 the government spent $153 million, and colleges took $10 million of that funding; however, by 1960 the combined funding grew almost six-fold as a result. The legislation aimed to strengthen the nation's education system in response to national security concerns, with a focus on enhancing the United States' competitiveness with the Soviet Union in science and technology. Meanwhile, during the late 1950s and into the 1960s, NASA, the Department of Defense, and various private sector corporations developed multiple communications satellite research and development programs.
Labor unions Union membership peaked in the mid-1950s, when unions consisted of about one-quarter of the total work force. The
Congress of Industrial Organizations and the
American Federation of Labor merged in 1955 to form the
AFL–CIO, the largest federation of unions in the United States. Unlike some of his predecessors, AFL–CIO leader
George Meany did not emphasize organizing unskilled workers and workers in the South. During the late 1940s and the 1950s, both the business community and local Republicans sought to weaken unions, partly because they played a major role in funding and campaigning for Democratic candidates. The Eisenhower administration also worked to consolidate the anti-union potential inherent in
Taft–Hartley Act of 1947. Republicans sought to delegitimize unions by focusing on their shady activities, and the Justice Department, the Labor Department, and Congress all conducted investigations of criminal activity and racketeering in high-profile labor unions, especially the
Teamsters Union. A
select Senate committee, the
McClellan Committee, was created in January 1957, and its hearings targeted Teamsters Union president
Jimmy Hoffa as a public enemy. Public opinion polls showed growing distrust toward unions, and especially union leaders—or "labor bosses", as Republicans called them. The bipartisan
Conservative Coalition, with the support of liberals such as the Kennedy brothers, won new congressional restrictions on organized labor in the 1959
Landrum-Griffin Act. The main impact of that act was to force more democracy on the previously authoritarian union hierarchies. However, in the 1958 elections, the unions fought back against state
right-to-work laws and defeated many conservative Republicans.
Environmental issues The environmental movement was starting to grow—it gained national stature by 1970. Liberals (and the Democratic Party) wanted national control of natural resources—the level at which organized ideological pressures were effective. Conservatives (and the Republican Party) wanted state or local control, whereby the financial benefit of local businesses could be decisive. In a debate going back to the early 20th century, preservationists wanted to protect the inherent natural beauty of the national parks, whereas economic maximizers wanted to build dams and divert water flows. Eisenhower articulated the conservative position in December 1953, declaring that conservation was not about "locking up and putting resources beyond the possibility of wastage or usage," but instead involved "the intelligent use of all the resources we have, for the welfare and benefit of all the American people." Liberals and environmentalists mobilized against Secretary of the Interior
Douglas McKay – a businessman with little knowledge of nature. They alleged he promoted "giveaways" to mining companies regardless of environmental damage. They forced his resignation in 1956. Eisenhower's personal activity on environmental issues came in foreign policy. He supported the Geneva Convention of 1958 that provided a strong foundation for international accords governing the use of the world's high seas, especially regarding fishing interests. Eisenhower also promoted the peaceful use of atomic energy for the production of electricity, with strong controls against diversion into nuclear weapons. However, there was little attention to nuclear waste. Eisenhower signed the
Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 which provided funds for federal research in
air pollution. In 1956, Congress passed the
Fish and Wildlife Act which authorizes the
secretary of the interior to make decisions for the development, management, advancement, conservation and protection of
fisheries resources and wildlife resources through research, acquisition of refuge lands, development of existing facilities and other means.
Mid-term elections of 1958 The economy began to decline in mid-1957 and reached its nadir in early 1958. The
Recession of 1958 was the worst economic downturn of Eisenhower's tenure, as the unemployment rate reached a high of 7.5%. The poor economy,
Sputnik, the federal intervention in Little Rock, and a contentious budget battle all sapped Eisenhower's popularity, with
Gallup polling showing that his approval rating dropped from 79 percent in February 1957 to 52 percent in March 1958. A controversy broke out in mid-1958 after a House subcommittee discovered that White House Chief of Staff Sherman Adams had accepted an expensive gift from
Bernard Goldfine, textile manufacturer under investigation by the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Adams denied the accusation that he had interfered with the FTC investigation on Goldfine's behalf, but Eisenhower forced him to resign in September 1958. As the
1958 mid-term elections approached, the Democrats attacked Eisenhower over the Space Race, the controversy relating to Adams, and other issues, but the biggest issue of the campaign was the economy, which had not yet fully recovered. Republicans suffered major defeats in the elections, as Democrats picked up over forty seats in the House and over ten seats in the Senate. Several leading Republicans, including Bricker and Senate Minority Leader
William Knowland, lost their re-election campaigns.
Twenty-third Amendment Under the original
constitutional rules governing the
Electoral College, presidential electors were apportioned to
states only. As a result, the District of Columbia was excluded from the presidential election process. Several constitutional amendments to provide the district's citizens with appropriate rights of voting in national elections for president and vice president were introduced in Congress during the 1950s. Eisenhower was a persistent advocate for the voting rights of D.C. residents. On June 16, 1960, the
86th Congress approved a constitutional amendment extending the right to vote in presidential election to citizens residing in the District of Columbia by granting the district electors in the Electoral College, as if it were a state. After the requisite number
state legislatures ratified the proposed amendment, it became the
Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution on March 29, 1961.
States admitted to the Union , and
Fred A. Seaton celebrate Alaska statehood. Eisenhower had called for the admission of
Alaska and
Hawaii as states during his 1952 campaign, but various issues delayed their statehood. Hawaii faced opposition from Southern members of Congress who objected to the island chain's large non-white population, while concerns about military bases in Alaska convinced Eisenhower to oppose statehood for the territory early in his tenure. In 1958, Eisenhower reached an agreement with Congress on a bill that provided for the admission of Alaska and set aside large portions of Alaska for military bases. Eisenhower signed the
Alaska Statehood Act into law in July 1958, and Alaska became the 49th state on January 3, 1959. Months later on March 18, 1959, Eisenhower signed the
Hawaii Admission Act, and Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21, 1959. ==Health issues==