U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 19. The South Carolina Republican introduced legislation that would require House members and staffers from "using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex."

Here’s what U.S. Rep. Lindsay Warren wrote in 1934, after Rep. Oscar De Priest of Illinois angrily protested that one of his aides had been refused service in the public section of the House restaurant: “If we let one Negro employee eat in the restaurant, we’ll have to let all of them. It always has been the rule to feed only white people in the restaurant.”

History shouldn’t forgive Rep. Warren — a diehard segregationist — for this or the other abundant examples of his bigotry, but we can put it in some context: The North Carolina Democrat was raised up and conducted his political career at the height of Jim........

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