Liberalizing Lynching: Building a New Racialized State

Liberalizing Lynching: Building a New Racialized State
ISBN-10
0190232587
ISBN-13
9780190232580
Category
Law
Pages
272
Language
English
Published
2015-10-01
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Author
Daniel Kato

Description

In spite of America's identity as a liberal democracy, the vile act of lynching happened frequently in the Southern United States over the course of the nation's history. Indeed, lynchings were very public events, and were even advertised in newspapers, begging the question of how such a brazen disregard for the law could have occurred so freely and openly. Liberalizing Lynching: Building a New Racialized State seeks to explain the seemingly paradoxical relationship between the American liberal regime and the illiberal act of lynching. Drawing on legal cases, congressional documents, presidential correspondence, and newspaper reports, Daniel Kato explores the federal government's pattern of non-intervention regarding lynchings of African Americans from the late nineteenth century through the 1960s. Although popular belief holds that the federal government was unable to address racial violence in the South, this book argues that the actions and decisions of the federal government from the 1870s through the 1960s reveal that federal inaction was not primarily a consequence of institutional or legal incapacities, but rather a decision that was supported and maintained by all three branches of the federal government. Inaction stemmed from the decision not to intervene, not the powerlessness of the federal government. To cement his argument, Kato develops the theory of constitutional anarchy, which crystallizes the ways in which federal government had the capacity to intervene, yet relinquished its responsibility while nonetheless maintaining authority. A bold challenge to conventional knowledge about lynching, Liberalizing Lynching will serve as a useful tool for students and scholars of political science, legal history, and African American studies.

Other editions

Similar books

  • Property Law: Rules, Policies, and Practices
    By Joseph William Singer, Bethany R. Berger, Nestor M. Davidson

    See also Country Community Timberlake Village v. HMW Special Utility District of Harris, 438 S.W.3d 661 (Tex. Ct. App. 2014) (holding that a neighboring ...

  • Entertainment Law and Business
    By William D. Henslee, Elizabeth Henslee

    After Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson's pierced nipple on national television for 9/16ths of a second, the FCC received over 540,000 complaints.

  • The Common Law in Colonial America: Volume III: The Chesapeake and New England, 1660-1750
    By William E. Nelson

    Volume III: The Chesapeake and New England, 1660-1750 William E. Nelson ... Decision of Law, Surry County Ct. 1673/74, in Eliza Timberlake Davis ed., ...

  • The Indiana State Constitution
    By William P. McLauchlan

    E. Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160 (1941), 66 Edwards v. Housing Authority of City of ... Timberlake, 148 Ind. 38,46 N.E.339 (1897), 69,70 Graves v.

  • Child Support Guidelines: Interpretation and Application
    By Laura W. Morgan

    Fitzgerald, 4.08[B][2], 5.05[D] Fitzgerald v. ... Mastrapa-Font, 7.03[A][3] Fontaine, In re, 5.05[D] Fontenette v. ... Frost, 5.05[A] Formato v.

  • Maritime Fraud and Piracy
    By Paul Todd

    The sole remedy is avoidance, however; damages cannot be claimed under s. ... 17, it places a great deal of power in the hands of insurance companies to ...

  • Principles of the Carriage of Goods by Sea
    By Paul Todd

    Normally, a mate«s receipt would later be given up for a bill of lading, ... they necessarily prejudice the rights of those who deal in the goods ...

  • Maryland Employment Law
    By Stanley Mazaroff, Todd Horn

    27 257 U.S. 184, 42 S. Ct. 72, 66 L. Ed. 189 (1921). ... 38 Argensinger, “Right to Strike”: Labor Organization and the New Deal in Baltimore, 78 MD . HIST .

  • Contract Law in New Zealand
    By Stephen Todd, Jeremy Finn

    704 Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017, s. 80. 705 Leith v. Gould [1986] 1 NZLR 760. It is not clear how a New Zealand court would deal with a case such ...

  • Tort Law in New Zealand
    By Stephen Todd

    ... to meet the reasonable expectations of claimants about how the corporation should deal with them, by, inter alia, ... 7 Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, s.