In 1951, he began proposing a code of ethics for government employees, nicknamed "The Ten Commandments". After the Sherman Adams affair, the document was adopted as the first code of ethics for government service in 1958. In 1955, he sponsored the bill that added the words In God We Trust to the nation's currency. He signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto, and voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, but voted in favor of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.