Still image featuring actors Claude Rains and Jimmy Stewart from the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
24 September 2020
As we know it today, a filibuster is a procedural move to delay or block a piece of legislation in the U.S. Senate. But it is a word that is intertwined with American history, and in particular with colonialism, slavery, and the oppression of Black people, from before the American Revolution through to the present day.
Traditionally, debate in the U.S. Senate was unlimited, senators could continue to speak on a topic as long as they actually hold the floor, and there are examples of groups of and even individual senators have blocked legislation for days and even permanently. In 1957, then-Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set the record for an individual filibuster by speaking for 24 hours, 18 minutes in an attempt to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The bill eventually passed. This vision of how a filibuster operates is perhaps best exemplified in Frank Capra’s 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which newly minted Senator Jefferson Smith, played by James Stewart, filibusters for 25 hours before collapsing from exhaustion.
But today the filibuster is limited to legislation and cannot be used to block confirmation of executive branch or judicial appointees, and senators do not have to continuously speak. All that is needed is a showing that there are not 60 votes (out of 100 senators) to invoke cloture and end debate. If there aren’t the 60 votes, the senate drops the matter and goes on to other business. And it seems likely that the Senate will change its procedures to disallow the filibuster entirely in the near future.
Originally, however, a filibuster had nothing to do with parliamentary procedure; a filibuster was a pirate or privateer. The word comes from the Dutch vrijbuiter, literally freebooter, as in booty, or someone with license to plunder, either from a government or from being an outlaw with nothing to lose. There are cognates in many Germanic languages. The modern parliamentary term, however, is a nineteenth-century borrowing of the Spanish filibustero.
The form frebetter appears in a 19 July 1570 letter from Michael Coulweber to Thomas Gresham:
And for so much as I was spoyled by the waye in cominge towards England by the Duke of Alva his frebetters maye it please the Queene’s Majestie and your honnor to consider me therein to her Majestie, and your honour’s pleasure.
The introduction of the < l > is uncertain. It may be from the Dutch vlieboot or Spanish flibote, literally fly-boat, a small, fast boat favored by many pirates. (The Spanish word is almost certainly borrowed from the Dutch; the sixteenth-century Caribbean was awash with such linguistic exchanges.) Although, the earliest instances of the English word with the < l > are references to armies or bands of soldiers that plunder, not pirates at sea. Flibutor appears by 1591 in Garrard and Hitchcock’s The Arte of Warre:
Merchants, victualers, artificers, and such others, as bring wares to the campe, he must take order that they be courteously & fauourably vsed, to the intent that they may vtter their wares willingly & safely, foreseeing that they be paid with good money, vsing towards them a louing countenance, & procuring them a conuoy & sufficient gard, as well for their cōming as for their departing, to the intent they may with good wils, be occasioned to returne the more speedely, & so remaine altogether satisfied, without suspect of being robbed or spoiled of theeues and flibutors, for which he ought diligently & sufficiently to prouide, since that by their meanes an armie is made abundant of all things propre, commodious and necessary.
The form flibustier shows a French influence. That form appears in the 1699 A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew:
Flibustiers, West-Indian Pirates, or Buekaneers, Free-booters.
After these early uses, the word largely drops from English usage, except for the occasional historical reference.
The word reappears in nineteenth-century America, a borrowing from the Spanish filibustero, which also traces back to the same Dutch root. It is applied to Commodore Matthew Perry during the Mexican-American War. From the New Orleans Times-Picayune of 10 December 1846:
A Filibuster.—We expect to hear by the next arrival from the Gulf that Com. Perry has made a descent upon some important point on the Mexican coast. He left Tampico on the 2d inst. with the U.S. steamship Mississippi, the steamer Vixen, sloop of war John Adams, and schooners Bonita and Petrel, on an expedition unknown. The mystery observed in regard to the destination of this force augurs the importance of the service that has been assigned it, but Com. Perry is one of those officers who does not keep friend or foe long in suspense as to what he is about. For his recent exploit before Tabasco the Vera Cruz papers denounced him as a filibuster. We apprehend that they will have to invent a bigger word to characterize his future operations. Filibuster, though, sounds like a term of significance—it may be a good word, like “nobled queen,” yet we doubt if it will answer the coming occasions of the Mexican press.
And it comes into widespread use during the 1850s in reference to bands of American mercenaries who raided, plundered, and intervened in the politics of Latin American and Caribbean countries, in particular Cuba. There are quite literally tens of thousands instances of this sense of filibuster in U.S. newspapers during the period 1850–60. An early example of this sense is from the New Orleans Weekly Delta of 24 June 1850:
An American Filibuster.
The fashionable word for the members of the late Expedition to Cuba, is filibuster—the Anglicised filibustero of the Spaniards. Terms, bestowed in reproach, are often accepted as compliments by those to whom they are applied. So it is with the gallant young men who formed the late Expedition to Cuba. Conscious of the honesty of their motives, they find considerable amusement in the high-sounding, terrible epithets of the ferocious Spaniards and their American allies. Thus, therefore, the word “Filibuster” has acquired a significance and popularity, which is likely to give it considerable run. It has entirely superseded the word “Liberator.”
Filibuster also quickly developed an extended sense, referring to politicians who were extreme and bellicose in their views, particularly over the question of slavery. This sense is in place by 1851. From the Georgia Telegraph of 26 August 1851:
Now, every body at the South has agreed upon the unconstitutionality of the Wilmot Proviso; and all parties—from the lowest soap tail to the most rampant fire eater—from the most obsequious of the Fillmorebusters to the most ultra of the Filibusters—have declared that a vote of Congress directly excluding the Southerner from the territories gained by common exertion, valor, and treasure, would be ample cause of immediate “disruption.”
The term Fillmorebuster is a nonce word, a play on filibuster, referring to President Millard Fillmore. Fillmore was a Whig who supported slavery as a means to keep the union together, helping to negotiate the Compromise of 1850, which permitted territories to decide for themselves whether or not to permit slavery, and signing the Fugitive Slave Act. So, a Fillmorebuster would be a tepid opponent of or a tacit supporter of slavery. The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful attempt to undo the Compromise of 1850 and prohibit slavery in the U.S. territories.
The filibuster would continue to be tactic of choice by those senators wishing to deny Blacks their Civil Rights and maintain White supremacy through to the present day.
Along with being a label for a bellicose politician, filibuster was also used as a verb meaning to engage in incendiary rhetoric. We can see this verb sense in the Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser of 30 January 1852:
The government of Great Britain would never consider or receive resolutions that accompanied a prayer for mercy [for Irish political exiles] with an attack on her policy, or disrespectful or denunciatory language. His idea was that if the Senate merely proposed to filibuster a little on general principles, there would be no harm in adopting the resolutions of General Cass; but if there was a sincere wish to intercede effectually for the exiles, the Senate had better think twice before taking any such action.
And it was used as an adjective referring to such rhetoric. From the New Orleans Daily Picayune of 9 February 1852:
I perceive that Gen. Cass is endeavoring to head him off by a similar course in the U.S. Senate, where he introduced a resolution, and made quite a filibuster speech on the subject yesterday.
So far, filibuster had shifted in meaning from pirate to mercenary to bellicose politician to bellicose speech. And in the 1860s it would acquire the current sense of blocking legislative action by continuing debate. This sense is in place by 1863 when the New Haven Daily Palladium of 17 January 1863 writes this about the New York state legislature:
There is great excitement in the Assembly. The Hall is crowded. The main business so far has been filibustering, and speeches to stave off a vote.
The tactic was widespread throughout the United States during the 1860s, as can be seen from the following reports.
Missouri, 18 January 1864:
Mr. Wingate said this bill must be acted upon, and by postponing it from day to day, and filibustering to defeat it, we failed in our duty to our constituents and sacrificed the best interests of the State.
Kentucky, 22 January 1864:
The election of a Senator was prevented by the Senate today by filibustering until the hour of adjournment.
New Jersey, 25 January 1865:
Mr. L. Abbott moved that the House adjourn. Lost—29 to 30—the Democrats voting in the affirmative and the Unionists in the negative.
A system of “filibustering” was then entered into after which a motion to adjourn until Monday evening prevailed.
U.S. Congress, 31 January 1865:
Mr. Farnsworth, of Illinois, noticed the comment upon himself in the Washington correspondence of the Chicago Tribune, written, he said, by an employee of the House, in which he, with others, were represented as having filibustered to prevent the passage of Mr. Washburne’s resolution reducing tax on printing paper, and as being conspicuous among those who desired to continue the tax on knowledge.
Eventually, most parliamentary bodies would enact rules to eliminate the filibuster, but the practice continues in the U.S. Senate.
At its heart, the filibuster is deeply undemocratic, allowing a minority of senators to hold the nation hostage. Given the word’s roots in piracy, this should not be surprising.
Sources:
“An American Filibuster.” New Orleans Weekly Delta, 24 June 1850, 8. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Baltimore Correspondence.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), 9 February 1852, 1. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
B. E. A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew in Its Several Tribes of Gypsies, Beggers, Thieves, Cheats &c. London: W. Hawes, 1699. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Burgon, John William. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, vol. 2 of 2. London: Robert Jennings, 1839. 360. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
“The Canvass in the 2d District. Mr. Johnson’s Politics.” The Georgia Telegraph (Macon, Georgia), 26 August 1851. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“A Filibuster.” Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 10 December 1846, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Garrard, William and Captain Hitchcock. The Arte of Warre. London: Roger Warde, 1591, 236. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
“The Irish Exiles.” Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser (Alexandria, Virginia), 30 January 1852, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“The Kentucky Senatorship.” Boston Evening Transcript, 22 January 1864, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Missouri Legislature.” Daily Missouri Republican (St. Louis), 18 January 1864, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“New Jersey Legislature.” West Jersey Press (Camden, New Jersey), 25 January 1865, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“New York Speakership.” The Daily Palladium (New Haven, Connecticut), 17 January 1863, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. filibuster, n. and filibuster, v.; third edition, June 2008, s.v. freebooter, n.
“Thirty-Eighth Congress—2d Session.” The Daily Age (Philadelphia), 31 January 1865, 2. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Photo credit: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, dir. Frank Capra, Columbia Pictures, 1939.