Item Detail
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13233
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0
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0
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English
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Resistance and Enforcement : The U.S. Department of Justice, 1870-1893
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Charlottesville, Virginia
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University of Virginia
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Ph.D. diss.
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"This study examines the history of the United States Department of Justice from its founding in 1870 through its first twenty-four years. The emphasis is upon the Department's role in enforcing federal criminal laws, and the chief actors are the Department's field officers, the United States Attorneys and Marshals. The dissertation consists of a series of case studies, treating in detail the enforcement of federal laws in three judicial districts. In enforcing the Enforcement Acts in Northern Mississippi, in combatting polygamy in Utah Territory, and in protecting the federal treasury in the highlands of Eastern Tennessee, Justice Department officials encountered similar problems. The United States Attorneys General failed to give adequate supervision to their field officers, while the Congress refused to provide sufficient appropriations for judicial expenses or for additional Justice Department lawyers. Judges proved sympathetic to violators in their own districts, and sentencing was accordingly very lenient. But without a doubt the greatest obstacle encountered by the field officers of the Justice Department was local resistance to federal laws. Marshals and Attorneys were snubbed, harassed, refused food and lodging, and were threatened, beat up, shot, even poisoned. In Utah and Mississippi the United States Army worked closely with the Justice Department in an attempt to combat the local resistance. In Tennessee the Army was not employed, but the Marshal there had a large force of heavily armed deputies and raiders. In the face of emphatic resistance to the enforcement of federal laws, the field officers of the Justice Department proved themselves to be activists. They prodded the Attorney General, lobbied Congress, visited the President. If they saw that public opinion was not with them, they published pamphlets, made speeches, sent letters to the editor, and even wrote books. In the end public opinion proved to be the decisive factor, and the nation's citizens demanded (and received) successful enforcement of the polygamy laws, while increasing citizen indifference to the Enforcement Acts and the Revenue Acts meant that the Justice Department achieved only partial victories in enforcing those laws." [Author's abstract]