[Volokh] : My New Book About the Colfax Massacre:

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My New Book About the Colfax Massacre:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_03_30-2008_04_05.shtml#1207085144


   I've been pleasantly surprised by the interest [1]blawgers and
   [2]other reviewers have shown so far in [3]The Day Freedom Died, my
   new book about a little-known massacre of more than 60 African
   Americans in 1873 -- and the ill-fated federal effort to bring the
   perpetrators to justice. The Supreme Court let the guilty parties go
   free in U.S. v. Cruikshank, 96 US 542 (1876).
   So I am grateful for Eugene's invitation to spread the word in this
   forum. The point of this and subsequent posts, I hope, is to deepen
   the discussion to talk about just why I feel that the court got it
   wrong not only morally -- but legally. The pinched interpretation of
   the 14th Amendment embodied in Cruikshank and subsequent
   Reconstruction-era rulings (e.g., The Civil Rights Cases) has not only
   had deleterious consequences for constitutional law down to the
   present day. It wasn't even required at the time!
   My book shows that, prior to Cruikshank, lower court federal judges
   had upheld pretty ample federal authority to go after the Klan, ruling
   that the 14th Amendment did empower Congress to criminalize individual
   acts that violated the civil rights of others. It was only with the
   intervention of Justice Joseph P. Bradley, riding circuit as the trial
   judge in Cruikshank in 1874, that that court began to see things
   differently. It was Bradley's decision to toss out the Colfax Massacre
   convictions in mid-1874 that the court upheld in the final Cruikshank
   ruling in 1876.
   In the intervening two years, white paramilitary organizations,
   green-lighted by Bradley, ran unchecked through LA, Miss., and SC,
   overthrowing the last three Republican governments in the South's
   three black-majority states.
   More anon.

References

   Visible links
   1. http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/index.php/punditry/the_day_freedom_died/
   2. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/volokh/posts/1207085144.html
   3. http://www.amazon.com/Day-Freedom-Died-Massacre-Reconstruction/dp/0805083421

   Hidden links:
   4. http://www.ew.com/article/0,,20181310,00.html
   5. http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/index.php/punditry/the_day_freedom_died/