Senator Harry Byrd, the state's dominant politician, was long a champion of constitutional rights against expansion of federal power. He deployed two doctrines in a last ditch battle against racial integration after the Brown decision of 1954: interposition and massive resistance. The first doctrine proclaimed that the U.S. Constitution allowed the states to interpose state sovereignty blocking rulings of federal courts from taking effect on local school boards. The new doctrine of Massive Resistance became a rallying cry across the southern United States to block orders by federal courts to integrate public schools. The test cases came in Virginia, when in 1956 the legislature adopted interposition and urged fellow states to join in. Governor Stanley abandon his earlier moderation, and the legislature adopted the Stanley Plan. It included 13 segregationist laws, including five that were designed to intimidate the NAACP. The governor now had the power to close public schools, and he shut down the first one in Warren County in 1958, followed by Charlottesville and Norfolk. In 1959 both the Virginia supreme Court of Appeals, and the federal court declared the Stanley Plan unconstitutional in terms of both the state and federal constitutions. Governor J. Lindsay Almond broke with Byrd; the General assembly voted to end massive resistance. Nevertheless, in 1959-1963, Prince Edward County closed all its public schools.