On September 24, 1957, President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000-member Arkansas National Guard in order to enforce the Supreme Court’s desegregation order after the decision in Brown v. Board of Education held that segregated schools were unconstitutional.

All acted in accord with the “Dixie Manifesto” of 1956, which was signed by 19 senators, all Democrats, and 80 Democratic congressmen. Among the signers of the manifesto, which called for massive resistance to the Brown decision desegregating public schools, was the vice presidential nominee on Adlai’s Stevenson’s ticket in 1952, Sen. John Sparkman of Alabama. -Patrick J. Buchanan

It wasn't a "tough" decision for Eisenhower to send troops to Little Rock in 1957. In the presidential campaign the year before, the Republican platform had expressly endorsed the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The Democratic platform did not. To the contrary, that year, 99 members of Congress signed the "Southern Manifesto" denouncing the court's ruling in Brown. Two were Republicans. Ninety-seven were Democrats. -Ann Coulter