Those who areinvolved with political criminology focus on the causes of crime, the nature of crime, the social and political meanings that attach to crime, and crime-control policies, in
Trang 1contemporary social upheavals Critical crimi-nology relies on economic explanations of behavior and argues that economic and social inequalities cause criminal behavior It focuses less on the study of individual criminals, and advances the belief that existing crime cannot be eliminated within the capitalist system It also asserts, like the conflict school, that law has an inherent bias in favor of the upper or RULING class, and that the state and its legal system exist
to advance the interests of the ruling class
Critical criminologists argue that corporate, political, and environmental crime are under-reported and inadequately addressed in the current criminal justice system
Feminist criminology emphasizes the sub-ordinate position of women in society Accord-ing to feminist criminologists, women remain
in a position of inferiority that has not been fully rectified by changes in the law during the late twentieth century Feminist criminology also explores the ways in which women’s criminal behavior is related to their objectifica-tion as commodities in the sex industry
Others using the social-structural approach have studied gangs, juvenile delinquency, and the relationship between family structure and criminal behavior
Social-Process Criminology Social-process cri-minology theories attempt to explain how people become criminals These theories developed through recognition of the fact that not all people who are exposed to the same social-structural conditions become criminals They focus on criminal behavior as learned behavior
Edwin H Sutherland (1883–1950), a U.S
sociologist and criminologist who first pre-sented his ideas in the 1920s and 1930s, advanced the theory of differential association
to explain criminal behavior He emphasized that criminal behavior is learned in interaction with others, usually in small groups, and that criminals learn to favor criminal behavior over noncriminal behavior through association with both forms of behavior in different degrees As Sutherland wrote, “When persons become criminal, they do so because of contacts with criminal patterns and also because of isolation from anticriminal patterns.” Although his theory has been greatly influential, Sutherland himself admitted that it did not satisfactorily explain all criminal behavior Later theorists
have modified his approach in an attempt to correct its shortcomings
Control theory, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, attempts to explain ways to train people
to engage in law-abiding behavior Although there are different approaches within control theory, they share the view that humans require nurturing in order to develop attachments or bonds to people and that personal bonds are key
in producing internal controls such as con-science and guilt and external controls such as shame According to this view, crime is the result of insufficient attachment and commit-ment to others
Walter C Reckless developed one version of control theory, called containment He argued that a combination of internal psychological containments and external social containments prevents people from deviating from social norms In simple communities, social pressure
to conform to community standards, usually enforced by social ostracism, was sufficient to control behavior As societies became more complex, internal containments played a more crucial role in determining whether people behaved according to public laws Furthermore, containment theorists have found that internal containments require a positive self-image All too often, a sense of alienation from society and its norms forms in modern individuals, who, as
a result, do not develop internal containment mechanisms
Sociologist Travis Hirschi has developed his own control theory that attempts to explain conforming, or lawful, rather than deviant, or unlawful, behavior He stresses the importance
of the individual’s bond to society in determin-ing conformdetermin-ing behavior His research has found that socioeconomic class has little to do with determining delinquent behavior, and that young people who are not very attached to their parents or to school are more likely to be delinquent than those who are strongly at-tached He also found that youths who have a strongly positive view of their own accomplish-ments are more likely to view society’s laws as valid constraints on their behavior
Political Criminology
Political criminology is similar to the other camps in this area It involves study into the forces that determine how, why, and with what consequences societies chose to address
Trang 2criminals and crime in general Those who are
involved with political criminology focus on the
causes of crime, the nature of crime, the social
and political meanings that attach to crime, and
crime-control policies, including the study of
the bases upon which crime and punishment is
committed and the choices made by the
principles in criminal justice
Although the theories of political
criminol-ogy and conflict criminolcriminol-ogy overlap to some
extent, political criminologists deny that the
terms are interchangeable The primary focus
points in the new movement of political
criminology similarly overlap with other
theo-ries, including the concerns and ramifications of
street crime and the distribution of power in
crime-control strategies This movement has
largely been a loose, academic effort
Other Issues
Criminologists also study a host of other issues
related to crime and the law These include
studies of the VICTIMS OF CRIME, focusing upon
their relations to the criminal, and their role as
potential causal agents in crime; juvenile
delinquency and its correction; and the media
and their relation to crime, including the
influence of pornography Much research
relat-ed to criminology has focusrelat-ed on the biological
basis of criminal behavior In fact, a field of
study called biocriminology, which attempts to
explore the biological basis of criminal
behav-ior, has emerged Research in this area has
focused on chromosomal abnormalities,
hor-monal and brain chemical imbalances, diet,
neurological conditions, drugs, and alcohol as
variables that contribute to criminal behavior
The true effect of criminology upon
prac-tices in the criminal justice system is still subject
to question Although a number of
commenta-tors have noted that studies in criminology have
led to significant changes among criminal laws
in the various states, other critics have suggested
that studies in criminology have not directly led
to a reduction of crime
In McCleskey v Kemp, 481 U.S 279, 107 S
Ct 1756, 95 L Ed 2d 262 (1987), an individual
who had been sentenced to death for aMURDER
in Georgia demonstrated to the U.S Supreme
Court that a criminologist’s study showed that
the race of individuals in that state impacted
whether theDEFENDANTwas sentenced to life or
to death The study demonstrated that a black
defendant who had killed a white victim was four times more likely to be sentenced to death than was a defendant who had killed a black victim The defendant claimed that the study demonstrated that the state of Georgia had violated his rights under the EQUAL PROTECTION Clause of theFOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, as well as under the Eighth Amendment’s protection against CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT
The high court disagreed Although the majority did question the validity of the study’s findings, it held that the study did not establish that officials in Georgia had acted with discriminatory purpose, and that it did not establish that racial bias had affected the officials’ decisions with respect to the death sentence Accordingly, the death sentence violated neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor theEIGHTH AMENDMENT
Criminology has had more of an effect when states and the federal government consider new criminal laws and sentencing provisions Crim-inologists’ theories are also often debated in the context of the death penalty andCRIME CONTROL ACTSamong legislators and policymakers In this light, criminology is perhaps not at the forefront
of the development of the criminal justice system, but it most certainly works in the background in the determination of criminal justice policies
FURTHER READINGS Carrington, Kerry, and Russell Hogg, eds 2002 Critical Criminology: Issues, Debates, Challenges Kent, U.K.:
Willan.
Cullen, Francis T., and Velmer S Burton, Jr 2007 Criminolog-ical Theory: Content and Consequences 4th ed Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
Reid, Sue T 2008 Crime and Criminology 12th ed New York: Oxford Univ Press.
White, Rob 2001 “Criminology for Sale: Institutional Change and Intellectual Field ” Current Issues in Criminal Justice 13 (November).
CROSS REFERENCES Critical Legal Studies; Forensic Science; Marx, Karl Heinrich.
CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES
An intellectual movement whose members argue that law is neither neutral nor value free but is in fact inseparable from politics
Critical legal studies (CLS) is a sometimes revolutionary movement that challenges and seeks to overturn accepted norms and standards
Trang 3in legal theory and practice CLS seeks to fundamentally alter jurisprudence, exposing it
as not a rational system of accumulated wisdom but an ideology that supports and makes possible an unjust political system CLS scholars attempt to debunk the law’s pretensions to determinacy, neutrality, and objectivity The law, in CLS scholarship, is a tool used by the establishment to maintain its power and domination over an unequalSTATUS QUO Openly
a movement of leftist politics, CLS seeks to subvert the philosophical and political authority
of what it sees as an unjust social system CLS advances a theoretical and practical project of reconstruction of the law and of society itself
CLS is also a membership organization that seeks to advance its own cause and that of its members
CLS was officially started in the spring of
1977 at a conference at the University of Wisconsin in Madison However, the roots of the organization extend back toLEGAL REALISM, a movement in U.S legal scholarship that flour-ished in the 1920s and 1930s Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with being the grandfather
of CLS with his various observations in The Common Law (1881) The legal realists rebelled against the accepted legal theories of the day, including most of the accepted wisdom of nineteenth-century legal thought Like CLS, legal realism emphasized that judicial decisions depend largely on the predilections and social situation of the judge Thus, the legal realists urged that much more attention be paid to the social context of the law The legal realists eventually influenced the development of the NEW DEALunder PresidentFRANKLIN D.ROOSEVELT
in the 1930s, and many served in positions where they affected government policy
In the 1960s many of the founding mem-bers of CLS participated in social activism connected to the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT and the VIETNAM WAR Many future CLS scholars entered law school in those years or shortly thereafter, and they quickly became unhappy with what they saw as a lack of philosophical depth and rigor in the teaching and theory of law Roberto Mangabeira Unger, a leading CLS theorist, has described the law faculty of those days as “a priesthood that had lost their faith and kept their jobs.” These young students began to apply the ideas, theories, and philo-sophies of postmodernity (intellectual move-ments of the last half of the twentieth century)
to the study of law, borrowing from fields as diverse as social theory, political philosophy, economics, and literary theory Since then, CLS has steadily grown in influence By 1989 more than 700 articles and books had been published expounding the ideas of this movement Besides Unger, noted CLS theorists include Robert W Gordon, Morton J Horwitz, Duncan Kennedy, andCATHARINE A.MACKINNON
CLS has been largely a U.S movement, though it has borrowed heavily from European philosophers, including nineteenth-century German social theorists such as KARL MARX, Friedrich Engels, andMAX WEBER; Max Horkhei-mer and Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt school of German social philosophy; the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci; and poststructuralist French thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, representing, respectively, the fields of history and literary theory
Several subcategories exist within the CLS movement: feminist legal criticism, which examines the role of gender in the law; critical race theory (CRT), which is concerned with the role of race in the law; postmodernism, a critique of the law influenced by developments
in literary theory; and a subcategory that emphasizes political economy and the economic context of legal decisions and issues Scholars disagree about the extent to which CLS is a coherent intellectual movement Some see it simply as a political position adopted by a disparate group of legal theorists who have fundamentally different, even contradictory, views Others emphasize that CLS theorists share a number of important ideas and approaches that together constitute a new approach to legal scholarship
First among the basic ideas that CLS scholars tend to share is the notion that law is politics—in other words, that law and politics are indistinguishable from one another Liber-alism, according to CLS theorists, has tradition-ally viewed the law as an objective, rational process of precise decision-making and politics
as a realm of imprecise, often irrational opinions and competing interests According
to CLS theorists, however, the law is not separate from the political realm and its disputes Legal reasoning, rather than being a strong fortress of objective rationality, is a fragile structure fraught with contradictory and arbitrary categorizations that are endlessly redefined and reworked
Trang 4In this view, the law is only an elaborate
political ideology, which, like other political
ideologies, exists to support the interests of the
party or class that forms it The legal system,
according to CLS, supports the status quo,
perpetuating the established power relations of
society The law does have logic and structure,
but these grow out of the power relationships
of society CLS therefore sees the law as a
collection of beliefs and prejudices that covers
the injustices of society with a mask of
legitimacy Law is an instrument for oppression
used by the wealthy and the powerful to
maintain their place in the hierarchy
As part of its project, CLS exposes what it
sees as the flaws in various aspects of liberal
legal theory and practice It argues, for example,
that judicial objectivity is impossible because
political neutrality or philosophical objectivity
cannot exist CLS thus strips the judiciary of its
supposedly disinterested role in society As
Allan C Hutchinson, a CLS theorist, wrote:
“The judicial emperor, clothed and coifed in
appropriately legitimate and voguish garb by the
scholarly rag trade, chooses and acts to protect
and preserve the propertied interest of vested
white and male power.” In this way, CLS
seeks to “delegitimate” and “demystify” the
law—that is, it seeks to undermine the law’s
acceptance and to remove the cloak of mystery
and awe surrounding its functioning
CLS theorists also share the related view that
the law is indeterminate They have shown that
using standard legal arguments, it is possible to
reach sharply contrasting conclusions in
indi-vidual cases The conclusions reached in any
case will have more to do with the social context
in which they are argued and decided than with
any overarching scheme of legal reasoning
Moreover, CLS scholars argue that the esoteric
and convoluted nature of legal reasoning
actually screens the law’s indeterminacy They
have used the ideas of deconstruction to
explore the ways in which legal texts are open
to multiple interpretations (Deconstruction is a
movement in literary theory that is connected to
the work of French philosopher Derrida and
that emphasizes the fundamental indeterminacy
of language.)
Consistent with their position on the
political left, CLS scholars have a common
dissatisfaction with the established legal and
political order and particularly for the liberalism
that they see as the dominant political ideology
CLS demonstrates how liberalism describes the world according to categories that exist as dualities: subjective-objective, male-female, public-private, self-other, individual-community, and so forth These dualities are sometimes called paired opposites by CLS theorists CLS then breaks down the dualities and shows how they create an ideology that furthers the interests of theRULING class CLS theorists also decry the individualism that liberal society fosters, and they call for a renewed emphasis on communal rather than individual values They particularly object to capitalism as an economic system, and they see liberalism as capitalism’s greatest apologist
Feminist Legal Criticism
Catharine A MacKinnon is a leading figure in radical feminist criticism (sometimes called fem-crit) Throughout her career, MacKinnon has attempted to show the ways in which the established legal system reflects the sexism of the society that created it The law, according to MacKinnon, is only one extension of a male-dominated society that is characterized by inequality between the genders and by the sexual objectification of women As the product
of a male-oriented view of the world and a male-dominated state, the law systematically victimizes and discriminates against women
“The law,” MacKinnon wrote, “sees and treats women the way men see and treat women.” It ensures male control over female sexuality The feminist project to counter this negative aspect
of the legal tradition, MacKinnon wrote, is “to uncover and claim as valid the experience of women, the major content of which is the devalidation of women’s experience.”
One topic that MacKinnon has examined in detail is the legal doctrine regardingRAPE Citing the difficulty that women have proving legally that they have been raped, MacKinnon inter-prets rape doctrine as the product of male ideology She argues that rape and the laws surrounding it, which are often ineffective in securing convictions of male rapists, are used by men to keep women in a position of submission and inferiority The law’s standards of objectiv-ity and neutralobjectiv-ity, according to MacKinnon, actually hide a male bias that makes it very difficult for a woman to win a rape case in the legal system The state thus perpetuates rape in a way that promotes the dominance of men
Trang 5MacKinnon also uses rape as an example of the way in which the conventional liberal distinction between public and private spheres actually enhances male power For women, according to MacKinnon, the private sphere cannot be separated from the public The private sphere as it is usually understood—that
is, the home—is actually a place where the law defines men’s right to dominate women through domestic abuse, marital rape, and exploitive work conditions The law, according
to MacKinnon, overlooks such injustices, and legal doctrines regarding the private sphere of the home perpetuate rather than resolve them
Critical Race Theory (CRT)
CRT began in the mid-1970s when many intellectuals perceived that the CIVIL RIGHTS movement of the 1960s had ended and that in fact many of its gains were being turned back
As a result, they began to develop new theories and concepts that would allow them to under-stand the causes and implications of these new developments Like CLS, CRT gathers disparate scholars and theorists under a common head-ing However, CRT is a less formally organized school of thought than CLS Leading critical race theorists include Derrick Albert Bell Jr., Alan D Freeman, and Patricia J Williams The first annotated bibliography of CRT writings, published in 1993, listed more than 200 books and articles
Critical race theorists share a number of themes Like CLS, CRT finds major faults in liberalism and particular features of liberal jurisprudence that bear on race, including AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, neutrality, and“color blind-ness.” Many CRT writers, for example, dispute that the Constitution is or ever can be “color-blind.” They also assert that supposed break-throughs in the area of racial rights by the Supreme Court serve only to validate an unjust political system by creating the illusion that racial inequalities are being ended when in fact they are not CRT scholars generally seek a greater understanding of the social origins of race and racism, and, like CLS theorists, they employ social theory and science in that cause
Many in the CRT movement examine how the structure of legal thought or culture influences its content, usually in a way that maintains the status quo Some in the movement make a case for cultural separatism or nationalism for people of color, arguing that preserving the
diversity and separateness of different racial groups will benefit everyone CRT also attempts
to understand the cyclical nature of U.S race relations—characterized by periods of racial progress and relative harmony followed by periods of racial retrenchment and discord CRT writers also make frequent use of historical and social theories regarding colonialism and SLAVERY
Many CRT writers employ unconventional narrative methods—sometimes called legal storytelling—in their legal writing, including fiction, myth, parable, anecdote, and autobiog-raphy These approaches often demonstrate the way in which the majoritarian mind-set (in this case, the outlook of the white majority, includ-ing its prejudices and presuppositions) impedes the cause of racial reform Bell, for example, published in a legal journal a science fiction story with implications for race relations in the United States In it, an extraterrestrial race comes to earth and offers to solve the United States’ economic and environmental problems
in exchange for possession of all black U.S citizens In describing what happens after this event, the story shows how a majority group (here, white U.S citizens) must always put some other group on the bottom of the socioeco-nomic ladder as a scapegoat for the country’s social ills
CLS and Its Alternative View of the Law and Society
Consistent with their leftist heritage, CLS theorists call for radical changes in the law and in the structure of society itself Unger has called this radical project “institutional recon-struction.” Many in the CLS movement want to overturn the hierarchical structures of domina-tion in modern society, and many of them have focused on the law as a tool in achieving this goal The law, CLS claims, has played a key role
in maintaining that hierarchy by impeding efforts at social change In general, CLS argues that there is no natural or inevitable form of social organization, and there is by no means agreement between CLS scholars as to what form society and its laws should take CLS thus avoids the kind of blueprint for social revolu-tion that radical leftist movements such as Marxism-Leninism supplied in the past In-stead, leading CLS devotees envision a potential emancipation of individuals from the structures
of power that restrict and victimize them For
Trang 6these reasons, the political philosophy of many
in the CLS movement has been described as
utopian, a characterization that many do not
completely deny
Unger provides the most well-known
exam-ple of the utopian tendencies in CLS In his
writings, he has attempted to outline a
“cultural-revolutionary practice” that will lead to nothing
less than“the systematic remaking of all direct
personal connections… through their
progres-sive emancipation from a background plan of
social division and hierarchy.” Unger envisions a
future in which the categories that currently
divide and separate people—including sexual,
racial, political, and class categories—are broken
down, allowing people to share more values and
to create a more harmonious society He calls for
an“empowered democracy” with a government
and economy that are largely decentralized In
terms of the economy, he proposes that capital
be controlled by the government, which would
establish a “rotating capital fund” that would
pass to “teams of workers or technicians” who
would decide how to use it Many conditions of
the economy, such as income disparity between
individuals, would be addressed by “central
agencies of government.”
Such innovations would require major
changes in the law, particularly as regards an
understanding of rights, including property rights
In his call for a radical restructuring of rights,
Unger proposes creating four categories:
immu-nity rights, which protect the individual from the
state, organizations, and other individuals;
desta-bilization rights, which make it possible to
dismantle institutions and practices that create
social hierarchy and division; market rights, which
constitute claims to social capital and replace
conventional property rights; and solidarity rights,
which are “the legal entitlements of communal
life.” Despite his criticism of liberalism, Unger
calls his philosophy“superliberalism”:
It pushes the liberal premises about state and
society, about freedom from dependence and
governance of social relations by the will, to
the point at which they merge into a larger
ambition: the building of a social world less
alien to a self that can always violate the
generative rules of its own mental or social
constructs and put other rules and other
constructs in their place
Unger therefore seeks to reform the law and
society in such a way as to liberate and empower
every individual
CLS has many critics Some see it as lacking coherence, fraught with the very contradictions that it identifies in liberalism Others accuse the movement of being nihilistic, of destroying the foundations of legal reasoning without putting anything in its place or without even making positive recommendations for change They find CLS prescriptions for the future to be too vague and utopian for practical application
Another widespread complaint is that the writings of CLS scholars are unnecessarily obscure, opaque, and turgid
Despite these criticisms, CLS has greatly influenced the study and theory of the law After some early battles to gain acceptance in the 1970s and 1980s, it earned an accepted position
in law schools across the United States
However, some legal scholars, both inside and outside the CLS movement, argue that as many
of the original CLS adherents age and reach positions of power in established law schools, their original radical impetus will fade and moderate Others argue that the call for justice and equality will always require an untempered radicalism that will be fueled by CLS Whatever the outcome, CLS has permanently changed the landscape of legal theory
FURTHER READINGS Boyle, James 1992 Critical Legal Studies New York: New York Univ Press.
Delgado, Richard 1993 “Critical Race Theory: An Anno-tated Bibliography ” Virginia Law Review 79, no 2 (March).
Hutchinson, Allan C., ed 1989 Critical Legal Studies.
Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.
Oetken, J Paul 1991 “Form and Substance in Critical Legal Studies ” Yale Law Journal 100.
Tushnet, Mark 1991 “Critical Legal Studies: A Political History ” The Yale Law Journal 110, no 5.
Unger, Roberto M 1986 The Critical Legal Studies Movement Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ Press.
CROSS REFERENCE Legal Education.
vCRITTENDEN, JOHN JORDAN John Jordan Crittenden served as attorney general of the United States in 1841 under PresidentWILLIAM H.HARRISON, and again in 1850 under President MILLARD FILLMORE He is also known for his efforts to keep Kentucky in the Union during theCIVIL WAR
Crittenden was born September 10, 1787, near Versailles, Woodford County, Kentucky
Trang 7His father was a Revolutionary War soldier and
an early Kentucky settler Crittenden was schooled near his home in Jessamine County, Kentucky He showed a great aptitude for learning and was encouraged to pursue a career
in the law He attended William and Mary College, and graduated in 1807 His first law practice was established in Logan County, Kentucky
After two years as a struggling country lawyer, Crittenden was appointed attorney general for the Illinois Territory by Governor Vinian Edwards, of Kentucky, in 1809 His first experience as a public servant was cut short by the WAR OF 1812 Crittenden returned to Kentucky and enlisted as a volunteer; he served
for three years and experienced firsthand the tragedy of war
In 1816 Crittenden was elected to a term in the Kentucky state legislature The following year, he was elected to a seat in the U.S Senate, but he did not complete the term Finding local politics more to his liking, he resigned in 1819 and returned to Frankfort, Kentucky, to reclaim his old seat in the statehouse
Though he had little affection for national politics, Crittenden did support fellow Kentuck-ianHENRY CLAY in his unsuccessful 1824 bid for the presidency Crittenden respected Clay’s views on a number of issues, and they became political allies and lifelong friends It was because of his association with Clay that Crittenden lost his next job In 1827 Crittenden was appointed U.S DISTRICT ATTORNEY for Kentucky by President JOHN QUINCY ADAMS He held the post until 1829, when he was removed
by President Andrew Jackson—after Crittenden and Clay had voiced their opposition to the financial policies of the Jackson administration
In 1835 Crittenden decided to give politics another chance Again, he sought and won a seat in the U.S Senate Crittenden was begin-ning his second Senate term when he was offered the position of attorney general by President Harrison He accepted
Crittenden had been an ardent Harrison supporter and had campaigned for him in 1840 When Harrison died of pneumonia shortly after his inauguration and was succeeded by VICE PRESIDENT JOHN TYLER, Crittenden was unable to support the new president Along with other Whigs in the cabinet, Crittenden resigned in
John Jordan Crittenden 1787–1863
◆
◆
◆
◆
◆
❖
1775–83
American Revolution
1787 Born, Woodford County, Ky.
1807 Graduated from William and Mary College
1809 Appointed attorney general
of the Illinois Territory
1812–14 Served as volunteer soldier in the War of 1812
1816 Elected to the
Ky state legislature
1827–29 Served
as U.S district attorney for Ky.
1817–19 Served
in U.S.
Senate
1835–41 Served
in U.S.
Senate
1841 Appointed U.S attorney
1850 Appointed U.S attorney general by President Fillmore
1855–61 Served in U.S Senate
1861–63 Served in U.S House of Representatives
1863 Died, Frankfort, Kentucky
1861–65 U.S Civil War
1848 Elected governor
of Ky.
John J Crittenden.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
Trang 8September 1841 In 1842 Crittenden found
himself back in the U.S Senate, appointed to fill
the seat left vacant by the retirement of Clay He
finished Clay’s term and was subsequently
reelected in his own right
Throughout his five separate terms in the
Senate, Crittenden was affiliated with the Whigs
With the WHIG PARTY, he opposed the
annexa-tion of Texas, discouraged animosity toward
Great Britain over the Oregon boundary, and
refused to give enthusiastic support to the
Mexican War
In 1848, while still a U.S senator, Crittenden
was elected governor of Kentucky; he resigned
his Senate seat to accept the job His return to
Kentucky brought renewed contact with Clay,
who was again running for the presidency
Crittenden, convinced that Clay was not a viable
candidate, threw his support toZACHARY TAYLOR,
and caused a permanent rift between himself
and Clay
Following the death of President Taylor and
the succession of Vice President Fillmore,
Crittenden was offered his old cabinet post as
attorney general He again accepted, and
through this office he authored an opinion
upholding the constitutionality of fugitive slave
laws Though many of Crittenden’s writings
were controversial, he agreed with the view that
attorney general opinions were only advisory
and could be ignored by the president
In 1855 Crittenden was elected to another
term in the U.S Senate There, he vigorously
opposed theKANSAS-NEBRASKA ACTof 1854 When
the issue led to the breakup of the Whig party,
he joined the American, or Know-Nothing,
party in 1856 Two years later he joined the
Constitutional Union party, and campaigned on
behalf of JOHN BELL and Edward Everett in the
1860 presidential election that broughtABRAHAM
LINCOLNto the White House
Although Crittenden did not agree with
Lincoln on all matters of policy, he did oppose
secession of the Southern states and he did
support Lincoln’s efforts to preserve the Union
As a prominent political figure in both the
North and the South, Crittenden worked hard
to effect a compromise that would avert a
civil war
In December 1860 he proposed an
amend-ment to the Constitution that has come to be
known as the Crittenden Resolution To bring
the Union together, he suggested that the Missouri Compromise line be restored and continued to California, thatSLAVERYbe guaran-teed indefinitely in the District of Columbia, and that slaveholders be reimbursed for run-away slaves
Crittenden’s compromise effort was defeated by Lincoln’s strong stand against any extension of slavery into the territories, and by opposition from strong Republican leaders in Congress Nevertheless, Crittenden stood with the government and continued to support Lincoln’s position that it was the right and duty
of the government to maintain the Union
Returning to Kentucky in early 1861, Crittenden traveled the state urging citizens to support the Union cause and to remain neutral
in the escalating conflict On May 27, 1861, he acted as chairman of the Frankfort Convention and successfully argued against leaders who encouraged Kentucky to join the Southern secessionists For his efforts, Crittenden was returned to Congress, but this time to the U.S
House of Representatives
As a representative, he opposed the confis-cation acts, theEMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, the military regime in Kentucky, the employment of slaves as soldiers, and the war in general On July 19, 1861, he offered a resolution that was adopted with only two dissenting votes:
Resolved by the house of representatives of
present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the southern states, now in arms against the constitutional government, and in arms around the capital; that in this national emergency congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect its only duty to the whole country; this war is not waged on their part in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest
or subjugation, or purpose of overthrowing
or interfering with the rights of established institutions of those states, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease
By 1863 Crittenden had held political office for almost 45 years He had served two presidents as attorney general, completed five terms as a U.S senator, and finished a single
COUNTRY IN THE
—J OHN C RITTENDEN
Trang 9term as a U.S representative He was preparing
to run for another term in the House when he died He was remembered at his funeral as a man with fine personal qualities, a gift for public speaking, and a firm commitment to the Union
Crittenden’s efforts to preserve the Union were personal as well as political: two of his sons were on opposite sides of the issues and the battle lines His youngest son, Thomas L
Crittenden, was a commissioned officer in the Union army; another son, George Bibb Crit-tenden, held similar rank in the army of the Confederacy
vCROCKETT, GEORGE WILLIAM, JR
George William Crockett Jr.’s political career spanned almost six decades He was an attorney,
a judge, and a leading CIVIL RIGHTS and LABOR UNIONactivist At the age of 71, he was tapped to represent Michigan’s 13th district in the U.S
House of Representatives His ten-year stint in Congress was marked by many milestones and much controversy
Crockett was born August 10, 1909, in Jacksonville, Florida He grew up in the South when racial segregation was a fact of everyday life, an experience that fueled his commitment
to correct injustices He attended public schools and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1931 He studied law at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1934 He was admitted to the Florida bar in the same year and began his legal career in Jacksonville
In 1939 Crockett became the first African American lawyer in the U.S DEPARTMENT OF LABOR He was one of the first hearing examiners
in the Fair Employment Practices Commission Crockett’s early involvement inLABOR LAWled to his founding and directing the Fair Employ-ment Practices DepartEmploy-ment of the International United Auto Workers (UAW) Union in 1944
He also served as treasurer and associate general counsel to the UAW and as assistant to the union’s secretary-treasurer
George William Crockett Jr 1909–1997
1925
1909 Born,
Jacksonville, Fl.
1914–18
World War I
1939–45 World War II
1950–53 Korean War
1961–73 Vietnam War
◆
❖
1934 Earned J.D from University of Michigan Law School
◆ ◆ ◆
1997 Died, Washington, D.C.
1980–90 Served in the U.S House of Representatives
1966–78 Served as judge on Detroit Recorders Court
1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination
in voting, jobs, and public accommodations
1952 Served four months
in prison as result of contempt citation from Foley Square case
1949 Defended U.S Communist party members in Foley Square trial
1943 Joined the Fair Employment Practices Commission
1944–46 Founded and directed the Fair Employment Practices Department of the International UAW
George Crockett Jr.
AP IMAGES
Trang 10After leaving the UAW, Crockett returned
to private practice with the law firm of
Goodman, Crockett, Eden, and Rob, where he
was a partner from 1946 to 1966 He remained
active in the civil rights and labor movements
throughout his career In the 1949 Foley Square
trial, he defended several members of the U.S
Communist Party against charges of
un-Ameri-can activities (United States v Foster, 9 F.R.D
367 [S.D.N.Y.]) Crockett’s clients, along with
many codefendants, were charged with
conspir-acy to advocate the overthrow or destruction of
the government by force or violence and
conspiracy to organize the Communist Party
as a society advocating such overthrow or
destruction During the trial, he railed against
what he thought were the judge’s abuses of his
clients’ rights His refusal to back down earned
him a contempt citation (United States v Sacher,
9 F.R.D 394 [S.D.N.Y.]) His conviction and
sentence for contempt were upheld on appeal,
182 F.2d 416 (2nd Cir.), and he spent four
months in the penitentiary at Ashland,
Kentucky, in 1952
While serving his prison term, Crockett
wrote to his son that prison is a good place to
learn patience because the relentless passage of
time teaches the value of persistence Crockett’s
patience was severely tested after his return
from prison when he was ostracized and forced
to fight a move to disbar him Because of his
involvement in the Foley Square trial, the labor
movement, and the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT,
he was labeled a communist sympathizer
However, in 1963 when President JOHN F
KENNEDY planned a meeting of civil rights
lawyers at the White House, Crockett’s name
was on the list of those the president wanted to
attend To be allowed into the White House,
Crockett had to be investigated by the FEDERAL
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, which finally granted
him a security clearance
Crockett served as a judge of the Detroit
Recorder’s (Criminal) Court from 1966 to 1978
His years on the bench included a term as
presiding judge in 1974 He retired from the
recorder’s court in 1978, but soon returned to
public service In 1980 Representative Charles
C Diggs Jr (D-Mich.), one of the few people
who had befriended Crockett upon his return
from prison in 1952, was himself sentenced to
three years in prison, for accepting kickbacks
from his congressional staff Diggs endorsed
Crockett to replace him, and, in a special election to fill the vacancy, Crockett was elected
to the post
At the age of 71, Crockett launched into his new career in Congress He continued to take controversial positions on issues ranging from African Americans in the foreign service to decriminalization of drugs He was arrested in
1984 at a demonstration protesting South Africa’s policy of apartheid In 1985, when tensions between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East were high and the United States officially supported Israel, Crockett invited a representa-tive of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to brief members of Congress on the PLO’s views about conditions in the Middle East The invitation was denounced by some members of the House, and, after intervention
by theSECRETARY OF STATE, the visit was canceled
In 1986 Crockett criticized President Ronald Reagan’s administration for not appointing more African American ambassa-dors He noted that the number of African Americans in the foreign service had declined during the years Reagan had been president He used his position as chair of the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Activi-ties to initiate a hearing on racism in appoint-ments to the foreign service The result was a promise from the secretary of state that the STATE DEPARTMENT would pursue a goal of appointing more members of minority groups
to foreign service positions In 1987 President Reagan appointed Crockett to the position of public delegate to theUNITED NATIONS
In addition to chairing the House Subcom-mittee on Western Hemisphere Activities, Crockett served on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Select Committee on Aging His final contro-versial act as a representative came in 1989 when he became the first member of Congress
to recommend publicly the decriminalization of drug possession Stating, “Our courts are burdened down with these drug cases and there
is nothing they can do about it,” Crockett called for decriminalization as“the only solution.” He was sharply criticized by many members of the administration, including William J Bennett, who was the director of federal drug policy
Crockett retired from public life at the end
of his fifth term in the House, which ended January 3, 1991, but remained one of Detroit’s
PROFESSIONAL GROUP BEARS A RESPONSIBILITY AS GREAT AS THAT
OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION FOR RIDDING OUR LAW AND OUR BODY POLITIC OF THIS CANCEROUS GROWTH
—G EORGE C ROCKETT