Loyalty oaths are required of government officials, such as the president, members of Congress and state legislatures, and members of the judiciary.. Employees in sensitive government po
Trang 1have been better off if Thurmond had been elected The comments, which Lott claimed were lighthearted and intended as a compliment
to Thurmond, soon became the center of a media frenzy and serious debate among mem-bers of Congress President GEORGE W BUSH
called the comments “offensive” and “wrong.”
Lott apologized on a number of occasions, but
to no avail Both Democrat and Republican members of Congress criticized the remarks, including his friends in the Senate
A number of media sources reviewed prior public comments by Lott and discovered that he had made similar remarks in the past In fact, in
1980 he made a very similar claim endorsing Thurmond after Thurmond had made a speech
in support of Ronald Reagan, who was then a candidate for president In December 2002, Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) claimed that he had enough votes to replace Lott as Senate majority leader
However, Lott resigned from the position before any vote took place Lott retained his seat in the Senate, but the events in 2002 and early 2003 clouded the public’s view of him
In 2006 Lott was re-elected to the U.S
Senate in Mississippi, defeating Democrat Erik
R Fleming, and then was elected minority whip
It was rumored that Lott had wanted to leave the Senate for quite some time, but that he stayed because of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath In late 2007 he announced his resignation, stating that he and his wife just wanted to do other things Lott’s term would’ve ended in 2012 By resigning in 2007, he beat a new law that required former house and senate members to wait two years before working as lobbyists, and only had to wait one year
While serving in Congress, Lott’s ability to mobilize his fellow representatives and senators
in support of key legislation was recognized with prominent positions in both houses, as Lott has the distinction of being the first Southerner named House minority whip and the first person elected whip in both houses of Congress
FURTHER READINGS Lott, Trent 2005 Herding Cats: A Life in Politics New York:
William Morrow.
Thornton, Leslie T 2003 “Race and the Republican Soul.”
Legal Times 26 (January 6).
Tumulty, Karen 2002 “Trent Lott’s Segregationist College Days ” Time Available online at www.time.com/time/
nation/article/0,8599,399310,00.html (accessed Sep-tember 24, 2009).
LOTTERY See STATE LOTTERY
LOUISIANA CIVIL CODE See CIVIL LAW
LOUISIANA PURCHASE The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 doubled the size of the United States, gave the country complete control of the port of New Orleans, and provided territory for westward expansion The 828,000 square miles purchased from France formed completely or in part thirteen states: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming President THOMAS JEFFERSON was unsure if the Constitution autho-rized the acquisition of land, but he found a way
to justify the purchase
France originally claimed the Louisiana Territory in the seventeenth century In 1763
it ceded to Spain the province of Louisiana, which was about where the state of Louisiana is today By the 1790s U.S farmers who lived west
of the Appalachian Mountains were shipping their surplus produce by boat down rivers that flowed into the Gulf of Mexico In 1795 the United States negotiated a TREATY with Spain that permitted U.S merchants the right of deposit at New Orleans This right allowed the merchants to store their goods in New Orleans without paying duty before they were exported
In 1800 France, under the leadership of Napoléon, negotiated a secret treaty with Spain that ceded the province of Louisiana back to France President Jefferson became concerned that France had control of the strategic port of New Orleans, and sought to purchase the port and West Florida When France revoked the right of deposit for U.S merchants in 1802, Jefferson sent JAMES MONROE to Paris to help
ROBERT R LIVINGSTON convince the French government to complete the sale These states-men warned that the United States would ally itself with England against France if a plan were not devised that settled this issue
Monroe and Livingston were authorized by Congress to offer up to $2 million to purchase
408 LOTTERY
Trang 2the east bank of the Mississippi; Jefferson
secretly advised them to offer more than $9
million for Florida and New Orleans
Napoléon initially resisted U.S offers, but
changed his mind in 1803 He knew that war
with England was imminent, and realized that
if France were tied down with a European war,
the United States might annex the Louisiana
Territory He also took seriously the threat of a
U.S.-English alliance Therefore, in April 1803
he instructed his foreign minister,
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, to negotiate
with Monroe and Livingston for the United States’ purchase of the entire Louisiana
Territo-ry Acting on their own, the U.S negotiators agreed to the price of $15 million, with $12 million paid to France and $3 million paid to U.S citizens who had outstanding claims against France The purchase agreement, dated April 30, was signed May 2 and reached Washington, D.C.,
in July
President Jefferson endorsed the purchase but believed that the Constitution did not provide the national government with the authority to
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LOUISIANA PURCHASE
Map showing area of Louisiana Purchase and surrounding areas.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE O’BRYAN GALE GROUP LOUISIANA PURCHASE 409
Trang 3make land acquisitions He pondered whether a
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT might be needed to legalize the purchase After consultations Jeffer-son concluded that the president’s authority to make treaties could be used to justify the agreement Therefore, the Louisiana Purchase was designated a treaty and submitted to the Senate for ratification The Senate ratified the treaty October 20, 1803, and the United States took possession of the territory December
20, 1803
The U.S government borrowed money from English and Dutch banks to pay for the acquisition Interest payments for the 15-year loans brought the total price to more than
$27 million The vast expanse of land, running from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Moun-tains and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border, is the largest ever added to the United States at one time The settling of the territory played a large part in the debate over
SLAVERY preceding the CIVIL WAR, as Congress grappled with the question of whether to allow slavery in new states, such as Missouri and Kansas
FURTHER READINGS Cerami, Charles 2004 Jefferson’s Great Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon and the Men Behind the Louisiana Purchase Naperville, IL: Source-books.
Kukla, Jon 2004 A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America Garden City, NY:
Anchor.
Levasseur, Alain A., and Roger K Ward 1998 “300 Years and Counting: the French Influence on the Louisiana Legal System ” Louisiana Bar Journal 46 (December).
Ward, Roger K 2003 “The Louisiana Purchase.” Louisiana Bar Journal 50 (February).
CROSS REFERENCES Kansas-Nebraska Act; Missouri Compromise of 1820.
LOW-TIDE ELEVATION Offshore land features such as shoals, rocks, or reefs that are exposed at low tide but submerged
at high tide are referred to as low-tide elevations
If a low-tide elevation lies at least partially within the normal breadth of the TERRITORIAL WATERS of a nation, the low-water line of that elevation may be used as a baseline for measuring the ultimate reach of the territorial sea of that nation Those low-tide elevations lying totally outside the usual breadth of the territorial sea
do not expand the reach of the territorial sea
of a nation
LOYALTY OATH
An oath that declares an individual’s allegiance to the government and its institutions and disclaims support of ideologies or associations that oppose
or threaten the government
Loyalty oaths are required of government officials, such as the president, members of Congress and state legislatures, and members of the judiciary Naturalized citizens are required
to pledge their allegiance to the United States, as are members of the ARMED SERVICES Employees
in sensitive government positions may also be required to take a loyalty oath (See U.S.C.A
§ 1448; U.S Const art II, § 1, cl 7; U.S Const art VI, cl 3.)
Requiring an employee to promise to support the government as a condition of employment
is constitutional as long as the requirement is reasonably related to the employee’s fitness for the particular position Loyalty oaths that infringe on a person’s ability to exercise a constitutional right must be narrowly focused to achieve a legitimate government objective If an oath is overly broad or vague, it may be found unconstitutional
Loyalty oaths have played a role in Ameri-can history since the settlement of the colonies The Puritans in New England required citizens
to pledge their support of the commonwealth and to report any individuals who advocated dissent against the government To ensure unity the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS and the legislatures of the first states all enacted laws requiring citizens
to pledge their allegiance to the U.S government Loyalty oaths are often invoked during times
of stress, such as wars, or when the government perceives an outside threat to security For example, after theCIVIL WAR, some states enacted statutes that excluded from certain professions those who had been disloyal to the United States and had sympathized with the CONFEDERACY One STATUTE that required an oath of prior loyalty for admission to the bar was found unconstitutional because it imposed a legislative punishment for past acts (See Ex parte Garland,
4 Wall 333, 71 U.S 333, 18 L Ed 366 [1866]; Cummings v Missouri, 4 Wall 277, 71 U.S 277,
18 L Ed 356[1866].) The period afterWORLD WAR IIwas the high-water mark in the history of loyalty oaths Fear
of Communist subversion affected many aspects
of life in the United States There was particular
410 LOW-TIDE ELEVATION
Trang 4concern that Communist sympathizers were
obtaining employment in the government and
in public schools Thus the majority of states
enacted statutes that required public
employ-ees, public school teachers, and university
professors to sign a loyalty oath as a condition
of employment Under some of the statutes,
schools were permitted to discharge teachers
who were thought to be disloyal to the
government Most of the statutes required
employees to pledge their support of the state
and federal constitutions Some also required
teachers to promise to promote patriotism,
pledge not to teach or advocate the forcible
overthrow of the government, and swear that
they did not belong to the Communist party
or any other organization that advocated the
overthrow of the government
Most loyalty oaths required of public
employ-ees have been struck down by the Supreme Court,
usually on the ground that they violate due
process because they are vague and susceptible to
wide interpretation In Baggett v Bullitt, 377 U.S
360, 84 S Ct 1316, 12 L Ed 2d 377 (1964), the
Court invalidated Washington’s statute requiring
teachers and state employees to take a loyalty
oath This oath stated that the employee promised
to support the federal and state constitutions
and promote respect for the flag and reverence for
law and order The Court held that the oath was
unduly vague, uncertain, and broad The Court
found further that it violated due process and
infringed on the teachers’FREEDOM OF SPEECH (See
also Cramp v Orange County, Florida, 368 U.S
278, 82 S Ct 275, 7 L Ed 2d 285[1961].)
The Court expressed a particular interest in
protectingACADEMIC FREEDOMfrom infringements
imposed by loyalty oaths, in Keyishian v Board of
Regents, 385 U.S 589, 87 S Ct 675, 17 L Ed 2d
629 (1967) In declaring a New York loyalty statute
unconstitutionally vague, the Court in Keyishian
called academic freedom a“special concern of the
First Amendment.” It also expressed its belief that
loyalty statutes that attempt to prescribe what a
teacher can say threaten to “cast a pall of
orthodoxy over the classroom.”
Some loyalty oath statutes have been
invali-dated on the ground that they unconstitutionally
infringe on freedom of association In Wieman v
Updegraff, 344 U.S 183, 73 S Ct 215, 97 L Ed
216 (1952), the Court held that Oklahoma’s
loyalty oath offended due process because it
indiscriminately penalized innocent association
or membership in Communist or other subver-sive groups That oath required public employees
to deny any past affiliation with such organiza-tions Similarly, in Elfbrandt v Russell, 384 U.S
11, 86 S Ct 1238, 16 L Ed 2d 321 (1966), the Court invalidated Arizona’s public employee loyalty oath on the ground that it infringed on the employees’ freedom of association To satisfy the Constitution, such statutes may penalize only those who join a subversive organization with knowledge of the group’s illegal objectives and
SPECIFIC INTENT to further them The Arizona statute denied public employment to anyone associated with a subversive organization,
wheth-er or not the pwheth-erson knew of the group’s objectives or subscribed to them
In some cases the Court has upheld loyalty oaths for government employees if the oaths meet certain requirements The oaths may not infringe on freedom of speech or association and may not be unduly vague According to the Court, requiring a public employee to promise
to uphold and defend the Constitution and oppose the illegal overthrow of the government does not unduly burden freedom of speech or association (See Cole v Richardson, 405 U.S
676, 92 S Ct 1332, 31 L Ed 2d 593 [1972].)
In 1994 a loyalty oath as a prerequisite for public employment was challenged on the ground that it violated religious freedom In Bessard v California Community College, 867
F Supp 1454 (E.D Cal 1994), the plaintiffs, who were Jehovah’s Witnesses, stated that
Enlistees in the U.S Navy take a loyalty oath during a re-enlistment ceremony aboard the USS John
C Stennis in 2002 Armed services members are required
to pledge their allegiance to the United States.
AP IMAGES LOYALTY OATH 411
Trang 5proclaiming loyalty to the government is pro-hibited by their RELIGION They argued that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of
1993 (RFRA) (42 U.S.C.A § 2000bb et seq.), the state could not require them to take the loyalty oath as a condition of employment unless it could prove that it had a compelling interest that could not be served except by requiring the oath The court held that the RFRA applied to the case, that the loyalty oath unconstitutionally infringed on the plaintiffs’ religious freedom, and that the DEFENDANT must make reasonable accommodations for the plaintiffs The court further noted that the defendant could ensure the plaintiffs’ loyalty by having them sign a statement that they would not act contrary to the defendant’s interests In City of Boerne v
Flores, 117 S Ct 2157 (1997), the Supreme Court struck down RFRA as exceeding Con-gress’s authority to safeguard rights under the
FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT The Court held that RFRA was an unconstitutional ENCROACHMENT
on state power
Government attempts to condition the receipt of certain benefits on a declaration of loyalty have generally been found unconstitu-tional In Speiser v Randall, 357 U.S 513, 78
S Ct 1352, 2 L Ed 2d 1460 (1958), the Court held that requiring veterans to take a loyalty oath as a precondition to receiving a veterans’
property tax exemption impinged on their free speech rights Justice William J Brennan Jr., writing for the majority, reasoned,“To deny an exemption to claimants who engage in certain forms of speech is in effect to penalize them for such speech.” Brennan’s opinion went on to state that the requirement would have a chilling effect on the claimant’s exercise of free speech
FURTHER READINGS Hyman, Harold M 1982 To Try Men’s Souls: Loyalty Tests
in American History Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Kalvern, Harry 1988 A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech
in America New York: Harper & Row.
Kutler, Stanley I 1982 The American Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War New York: Farrar Straus &
Giroux.
Levinson, Sanford 1986 “Constituting Communities through Words That Bind: Reflections on Loyalty Oaths ” Michigan Law Review 84 (June).
Scanlan, John A 1988 “Aliens in the Marketplace of Ideas.”
Texas Law Review 66 (June).
Senhauser, William B 1987 “Education and the Court: The Supreme Court’s Educational Ideology.” Vanderbilt Law Review 40 (May).
Sullivan, Kathleen M 1989 “Unconstitutional Conditions.”
Harvard Law Review 102 (May).
CROSS REFERENCES Chilling Effect Doctrine; Cold War; Communism; Compel-ling State Interest; Due Process of Law; Void for Vagueness Doctrine.
L.S
An abbreviation for locus sigilli, Latin for “the place of the seal,” signifying the place within a written contract where a seal is affixed in order
to bind the agreement
Because the use of seals is decreasing, the use of this abbreviation has declined
LUMP-SUM SETTLEMENT The payment of an entire debt all at once rather than in installments; the payment of a set amount
of money to satisfy a pecuniary obligation that might otherwise continue indefinitely
Lump-sum alimony, for example, is the payment of a large sum of money upon the dissolution of aMARRIAGEin order to circumvent the obligation to pay a certain amount, fixed or fluctuating, on a regular basis, for an indefinite period of time This type ofPROPERTY SETTLEMENT
is also known as alimony in gross
vLURTON, HORACE HARMON Horace Harmon Lurton epitomized late-nineteenth-century judicial conservatism
Wheth-er he was on the state or fedWheth-eralBENCH, restraint characterized Lurton’s opinions After a suc-cessful period in private practice in the 1860s and 1870s, Lurton won election to the Tennes-see Supreme Court in 1886 He was its chief justice in 1893; a federal judge on the U.S Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, from 1893 to 1909; and a professor and eventually law school dean at Vanderbilt University starting in 1898 In 1910, at age sixty-six, he became the oldest justice ever appointed
to the U.S Supreme Court
Lurton was born in Newport, Kentucky, on February 26, 1844 The son of an itinerant physician-turned-preacher, he spent a humble childhood in Tennessee The defining moment
in his life came while he was a 16-year-old undergraduate studying at Douglas University,
in Chicago When the CIVIL WAR broke out, Lurton immediately left school to join the Confederate army After refusing discharge for
a lung condition, he was captured; escaped; and then, while helping conduct guerrilla raids on
412 L.S.
Trang 6Union forces, imprisoned again He was
thought to be near death in the last months of
the war when his mother successfully appealed
to PresidentABRAHAM LINCOLNto release him for
health reasons
The experience of war gave Lurton new
priorities Rather than returning to finish his
degree in Chicago, he chose to pursue law at
Cumberland University Law School, in
Leba-non, Tennessee After graduating in 1867, he
distinguished himself in private practice as a
diligent, detail-oriented attorney In 1875 he
was appointed to fill a vacated judgeship in the
Sixth Chancery Division of Tennessee, where he
served for three years before financial pressures
made him return to practicing law The
judgeship cemented his reputation, and his
practice flourished over the next decade In
1886 he ran for a seat on the Tennessee Supreme
Court Lurton won For the next seven years, he
was regarded as an eminently fair, patient, and
courteous judge Not the least of his admirers
were his colleagues on the Tennessee high court:
by a unanimous vote, they made him the court’s
chief justice in 1893 While on the court he also
taught law at Vanderbilt University
No sooner had Lurton been made chief
justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court than
PresidentGROVER CLEVELAND tapped him for the
federal bench Lurton resigned from the
Ten-nessee Supreme Court and took his seat on the
U.S Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in
Cincinnati On the appellate court, Lurton
continued to pursue the conservative legal
philosophy that had guided his earlier career
He placed extreme importance on the
SEPARA-TION OF POWERS, preferring to have legislatures
make laws and abhorring modification of the
law by the courts
In 1905 Lurton served as dean of the Vanderbilt University law school He was nearly appointed to the U.S Supreme Court in 1906 by the reform-minded President THEODORE ROOSE-VELT The Republican president’s selection was
a measure of the respect that the Democratic judge had garnered Roosevelt only backed off from appointing Lurton when he was persuaded
to choose a Republican instead
In December 13, 1909, President WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT had no qualms about appointing
a Democrat, or about appointing the oldest candidate in Supreme Court history Some opposition was raised over Lurton’s age; more complaints were directed at the narrowness of his outlook Nevertheless, the Senate approved the nomination and Lurton received his com-mission only one week later There proved to be
Horace H Lurton PHOTOGRAPH BY VIC BOSWELL/GREGORY STAPKO COLLECTION
OF THE SUPREME COURT
OF THE UNITED STATES.
❖
1844 Born, Newport, Ky.
1861–65 Joined Confederate Army during U.S Civil War
1875–78 Held judgeship on the Sixth Chancery Division of Tennessee
◆
1867 Graduated from Cumberland University Law School
1886–93 Served
on the Tennessee Supreme Court
1893–1909 Served on U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati
1905–09 Served as dean of Vanderbilt University Law School
1909–14 Served on U.S Supreme Court
◆ ❖
1914 Died on vacation, Atlantic City, N.J.
1914–18 World War I
1911 Joined unanimous
decisions in Standard Oil v U.S and American Tobacco Co v U.S.
antitrust cases
1861–65 U.S Civil War
THE DUTY OF THE COURT IS LIMITED TO THE DECISION OF ACTUAL PENDING CONTROVERSIES.
—H ORACE L URTON
Trang 7no reason for worry: As an ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, Lurton largely followed the lead of the majority
Commentators are generally at a loss to find much of note in Lurton’s tenure on the Court, which lasted four years until his death It was the Progressive Era, and the Court was often concerned with the issue of government regulatory power, particularly in antitrust, the area of law devoted to enforcing fair competi-tion in business Although he had always resisted so-called judge-made law, Lurton joined in the Court’s unanimous decisions in groundbreaking antitrust cases such as Standard Oil v United States, 221 U.S 1, 31 S Ct 502, 55
L Ed 619 (1911), and American Tobacco Co v
United States, 221 U.S 106, 31 S Ct 632, 55 L
Ed 663 (1911) Lurton died July 12, 1914, in Atlantic City, New Jersey
FURTHER READINGS Friedman, Leon, and Fred L Israel, eds 1995 The Justices of the United States Supreme Court, 1789–1969: Their Lives and Major Opinions New York: Chelsea House.
Long, Rober 1994 “The Plain Truth Was Too Plain for Horace Lurton.” Civil War Times Illustrated 33 (Nov/Dec).
Tucker, David M 969 “Justice Horace Harmon Lurton: The Shaping of a National Progressive.” American Journal of Legal History 13.
LYNCHING Violent punishment or execution, without due process, for real or alleged crimes
The concept of taking the law into one’s own hands to punish a criminal almost certainly predates recorded history Lynching (or“lynch law”) is usually associated in the United States with punishment directed toward blacks, who made up a highly disproportionate number of its victims (While the origins of the term
“lynch” are somewhat unclear, many sources cite William Lynch, an eighteenth-century plantation owner in Virginia who helped to mete out vigilante justice.)
Lynching acquired its association with vio-lence against blacks early in the nineteenth century It was used as a punishment against slaves who tried to escape from their owners Sometimes, whites who openly opposed SLAVERY
were the victims of lynch mobs as well Perhaps not surprisingly, lynching did not become a pervasive practice in the South until after theCIVIL WAR The passage of theFOURTEENTH AMENDMENTto the Constitution granted blacks full rights of citizenship, including the right toDUE PROCESS OF LAW Southern whites had been humiliated by their loss to the North, and many resented the thought that their former slaves were now on an equal footing with them (relatively speaking) Groups such as theKU KLUX KLANand the Knights
of the White Camelia attracted white Southerners who had been left destitute by the war These groups promoted violence (sometimes indirectly)
as a means of regaining white supremacy Part of theAPPEALof groups such as the Ku Klux Klan was their white supremacy focus But these groups also played on the fears of Southern whites—that blacks would be able to compete with them for jobs, that blacks could run for political office, and even that blacks could rebel against whites Lynchings were carried out because of these fears Whites believed that lynchings would terrorize blacks into remaining subservient while allowing whites to regain their sense of status
Lynchings became even more widespread beginning in the 1880s and would remain common in the South until the 1930s Between
1880 and 1930, an estimated 2,400 black men, women, and children were killed by lynch mobs (During the same time period, roughly
300 whites were lynched.) Most lynchings occurred in the Deep South (i.e., Mississippi,
An African American
victim of a 1928
lynching Between
1880 and 1930, an
estimated 2,400 black
men, women, and
children were killed
by lynch mobs.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
414 LYNCHING
Trang 8Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, and South
Car-olina) Border Southern states—Florida,
Ten-nessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina
also had a noteworthy number of lynchings
A partial list of “crimes” that prompted
lynch mobs during these years underscores a
chilling disregard for life: gambling, quarreling,
arguing with a white man, attempting to vote,
unruly remarks, demanding respect, and
“acting suspiciously.” Lynchings were often
carried out against those suspected of more
serious crimes, but they were carried out
without allowing a fair trial It is no
exaggera-tion to state that any black man, woman, or
child in the South during these years was in
danger of being lynched for any real or
imagined improper behavior
Often, the victim of a lynching would be
dragged from his or her home; not infrequently,
a lynch mob would drag a victim from a jail cell
where supposedly he or she was to be awaiting a
fair trial The typical lynch mob would be made
up of local citizens; a core group would actually
carry out the crime, while many of the town’s
residents would look on The spectators often
included “respectable” men and women, and
children were often brought to lynchings A
lynching victim might be shot, stabbed, beaten,
or hanged; if he was not hanged to death, his
body would often be hung up for display Local
police, and even members of the armed forces,
either could not or would not intervene to stop
a lynch mob from taking the law into its own
hands Not infrequently, a lynching would
conclude with a loud, rowdy demonstration
among the assembled crowd The clear message
in each lynching was that the mob was in
control
One of the most common crimes answered
by lynch mobs was rape—particularly theRAPE
of a white woman by a black man Often, all
that a black man had to do to be accused of
rape was to speak to a white woman or ask her
out Lynchers justified their actions by saying
that they needed to protect women from
dangerous men In response, a group of
prominent women from seven Southern states
met in 1930 to form the Association of
Southern Women for the Prevention of
Lynch-ing This group deplored not only the act of
lynching itself, but also the fact that lynchings
were frequently witnessed by women and
children They were angered by claims that
lynching was a means of protecting white women During the 1930s they worked to eliminate lynchings throughout the South
Efforts by politicians to end lynchings were weak at best Efforts to move anti-lynching legislation through Congress in the early 1900s and again in the 1930s proved futile, in part because Southern representatives and senators carried significant political weight The first politician to take a visible stand against lynching was PresidentHARRY S.TRUMAN, in 1946 Shocked
by a lynching in Monroe, Georgia, in which four people—one a WORLD WAR II veteran—
were pulled off of a bus and shot dozens of times by a mob, Truman launched a campaign
to guaranteeCIVIL RIGHTSfor blacks, including a push for federal anti-lynching laws
Lynchings by Race, 1882 to 1964
Number of Lynchings
1882
1886
1890
1894
1898
1902
1906
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1964
64
64
11
58
19
7
3
9
8
1
1
1
2
Whites Blacks
SOURCE: University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, Professor Douglas Linder’s Famous Trials Homepage, Sheriff Shipp Trial, Lynching Statistics.
49
74
85
134
101
85
62
67
53
20
4
1
1
ILLUSTRATION BY GGS CREATIVE RESOURCES REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF GALE,
A PART OF CENGAGE LEARNING.
LYNCHING 415
Trang 9Truman was able to realize part of what he wanted, but the powerful Southern lobby managed to maintain much of the STATUS QUO Although large-scale lynchings were no longer staged, blacks in the South still faced vigilante retribution The MURDER of Emmett Till, in
1955, put enormous pressure on the South to condemn such barbarism Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago, was visiting relatives in rural Mississippi, where he made suggestive remarks
to a white woman The woman’s husband and brother-in-law tracked Till down, shot him, and threw his body in a river Although (perhaps because) they were acquitted of the murder, the case added momentum to the growing CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT People across the nation were genuinely shocked at the trial’s outcome, and new civil rights legislation was introduced in
Congress By the time the Civil Rights Act of
1965 was signed into law, there were still racial tensions—and elements of racial discord con-tinue into the twenty-first century—but the era
of the free-for-all lynch party in which entire communities participated had effectively come
to a close
FURTHER READINGS Branch, Taylor, 2006 Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–63 New York: Peter Smith Ginzburg, Ralph, ed., 1998 One Hundred Years of Lynchings Baltimore: Black Classic.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 1973 Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1918 New York: Ayer.
CROSS REFERENCES Civil Rights Movement; Slavery; Vigilantism.
416 LYNCHING
Trang 10vMACKINNON, CATHARINE ALICE
Catharine A MacKinnon is a law professor,
author, and a leading scholar and legal theorist
known for her ideas on SEXUAL HARASSMENT,
PORNOGRAPHY, and equality She is one of the
most widely cited English-speaking legal
scho-lars In 1982 her controversial proposal for
giving CIVIL RIGHTS to victims of pornography
was enacted by the city council of Indianapolis,
but the ordinance was ultimately overturned by
a federal appeals court The Supreme Court of
Canada, however, largely adopted her analysis
of equality, hate propaganda, and pornography,
inLITIGATIONwith the Women’sLEGAL EDUCATION
and Action Fund
MacKinnon was born in 1946 in Minnesota
Her father, George E MacKinnon, was a
pro-minentREPUBLICAN PARTY leader who served one
term in Congress and later became a federal
appeals court judge MacKinnon graduated
from Smith College in 1969 She received her
law degree in 1977 from Yale Law School and a
Ph.D in political science from Yale in 1987
MacKinnon was admitted to the
Connecti-cut bar in 1978, and the following year she
published her first book, Sexual Harassment of
Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination
She served as co-counsel for Mechelle Vinson in
the groundbreaking U.S Supreme Court case
concerning sexual harassment in the workplace:
Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v Vinson, 477 U.S
57, 106 S Ct 2399, 91 L Ed 2d 49 (1986) The
Court agreed with MacKinnon that sexual
harassment, and specifically a “hostile work environment,” was actionable under the 1964
CIVIL RIGHTS ACT(42 U.S.C.A § 2000e et seq.) as
SEX DISCRIMINATION The Court established sexual harassment as sex discrimination for the first time in history, rejecting a narrow reading of the law that would have restricted sexual-harassment claims to discrimination of an economic charac-ter Under this restrictive reading, an employer would not be held liable for harassment unless the employee’s salary and promotions were affected by the actions
Between 1979 and 1989, MacKinnon was a visiting professor at a number of prominent law schools, including her alma mater, Yale Al-though she was a prolific writer and a popular teacher, her views and her actions concerning pornography made her a controversial public figure Her radical feminist theories challenged the legitimacy of the legal system and main-stream liberal thought She argued that men, as a class, have socially dominated women, creating gender inequality According to MacKinnon, this inequality is the consequence of a systematic subordination rather than a simple product of irrational discrimination Thus, heterosexuality is
a social arrangement in which men are dominant and women are subordinate For radical femin-ists, gender is a question of power
In MacKinnon’s view, pornography is a powerful tool of the dominant male class, subordinating women and exposing them to
RAPE and other sexually abusive behavior In
M
PORNOGRAPHY SETS THE PUBLIC STANDARD FOR THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN IN PRIVATE AND THE LIMITS OF TOLERANCE FOR WHAT CAN BE PERMITTED IN PUBLIC.
—C ATHARINE
M AC K INNON