The Campaign to Impeach Justice William O. Douglas

Nixon, Vietnam, and the Conservative Attack on Judicial Independence
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7006-2848-3
Verlag: University Press of Kansas

Buch, Englisch, 336 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

The politics of division and distraction, conservatives’ claims of liberalism’s dangers, the wisdom of amoral foreign policy, a partisan challenge to a Supreme Court justice, and threats to the constitutionally mandated balance between the three branches of government: however of the moment these matters might seem, they are clearly presaged in events chronicled by Joshua E. Kastenberg in this book, the first in-depth account of a campaign to impeach Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas nearly fifty years ago.

On April 15, 1970, at President Richard Nixon’s behest, Republican House Minority Leader Gerald Ford brazenly called for the impeachment of Douglas, the nation’s leading liberal judge—and the House Judiciary Committee responded with a six-month investigation, while the Senate awaited a potential trial that never occurred. Ford’s actions against Douglas mirrored the anger that millions of Americans, then as now, harbored toward changing social, economic, and moral norms, and a federal government seemingly unconcerned with the lives of everyday working white Americans. Those actions also reflected, as this book reveals, what came to be known as the Republicans’ “southern strategy,” a cynical attempt to exploit the hostility of white southern voters toward the civil rights movement. Kastenberg describes the political actors, ambitions, alliances, and maneuvers behind the move to impeach Douglas—including the Nixon administration’s vain hope of deflecting attention from a surprisingly unpopular invasion of Cambodia—and follows the ill-advised effort to its ignominious conclusion, with consequences that resonate to this day.

Marking a turning point in American politics, The Campaign to Impeach Justice William O. Douglas is a sobering, cautionary tale, a critical chapter in the history of constitutional malfeasance, and a reminder of the importance of judicial independence in a politically polarized age.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Allgemeines Verfahrens-, Zivilprozess- und Insolvenzrecht Allgemeines Prozessrecht, Kostenrecht
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Staats- und Regierungsformen, Staatslehre
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Foreword by Senator Fred Harris
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1. Cold War Politics and the Court under Siege
- 2. The Rising Men, the Muckrakers of the Judiciary, and Beleaguered Judges
- 3. Douglas, Extrajudicial Activities, and the Vietnam Conflict
- 4. Ford's Attack on Douglas Begins
- 5. The House of Representatives Responds to Ford and the Cambodian Invasion
- 6. A Long Summer of Discord: The Senate Awaits the House
- 7. Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Joshua E. Kastenberg is associate professor of law and the Lee and Leon Karelitz Professor in Evidence and Procedure at the University of New Mexico School of Law. His many books include To Raise and Discipline an Army: Major General Enoch Crowder, the Judge Advocate General’s Office, and the Realignment of Civil and Military Relations in World War I and Law in War, War as Law: Brigadier General Joseph Holt and the Judge Advocate General’s Department in the Civil War and Early Reconstruction, 1861–1865.