Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 4 P3 pdf

DOUBT To question or hold questionable. Uncertainty of mind; the absence of a settled opinion or conviction; the attitude of mind toward the acceptance of or belief in a proposition, theory, or statement, in which the judgment is not at rest but inclines alternately to either side. Proof BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT is not beyond all possible or imaginary doubt, but such proof as precludes every reasonable HYPOTHESIS except that which it tends to support. It is proof to a moral certainty, that is, such proof as satisfies the judgment and consciences of the jury, as reasonable people and applying their reason to the evidence before them, that the crime charged has been committed by the defendant, and so satisfies them as to leave no other reasonable conclusion possible. A REASONABLE DOUBT is such a doubt as would cause a reasonable and prudent person in the graver and more important affairs of life to pause and hesitate to act upon the truth of the matter charged. It does not mean a mere possible doubt, because everything relating to human affairs, and depending on moral evidence, is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. v DOUGLAS, STEPHEN ARNOLD Stephen Arnold Douglas achieved prominence as a U.S. senator and as the originator of the policy known as Popular Sovereignty. He was born on April 23, 1813, in Brandon, Vermont. He pu rsued legal studies and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1834. In 1843 Douglas entered the legislative branch of the federal government as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Four years later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served until 1861. During his lengthy tenure as senator from Illinois, Douglas became an outspoken leader in the SLAVERY controversy, and his many debates and innovative policies earned him the name “Little Giant.” He was presiding officer of the Committee on Territories, a forum for the discussion of whether slavery should be allowed in the new territories. ◆ Stephen Arnold Douglas 1813–1861 ❖ 1813 Born, Brandon, Vt. ◆ 1834 Admitted to Illinois bar 1861–65 U.S. Civil War ◆ 1868 14th Amendment gave citizenship rights to former slaves 1852, 1856 Unsuccessfully sought Democratic nomination for president 1843–47 Represented Illinois in U.S. House ▼▼ ▼▼ 18001800 18501850 18751875 18251825 1858 Debated Abraham Lincoln seven times; won reelection to Senate 1861 Died, Chicago, Ill. 1847–61 Represented Illinois in U.S. Senate 1850 Helped formulate Popular Sovereignty section of the Compromise of 1850 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision denied citizenship to African Americans 1860 Chosen as Democratic candidate for president, but lost to Republican Lincoln ❖ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ 1865 13th Amendment abolished slavery ◆ Stephen A. Douglas. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS THERE CAN BE BUT TWO GREAT POLITICAL PARTIES IN THIS COUNTRY . —STEPHEN DOUGLAS GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 8 DOUBT Douglas was instrumental in the formulation of the bills which constituted that section of the COMPROMISE OF 1850 that allowed the residents of Utah and New Mexico to decide whether or not their states would institute slavery. This freedom of choice became known as the policy of Popular Sovereignty. Four years later, Douglas again attempted to apply this p o licy to th e slavery issue involved in the admission of Kansas and Nebraska to the Union. The plan was not successful, however, for the proslavery and antislavery forces in Kansas clashed in a violent action. Two separate governments were estab- lished, the Lecompton, or proslavery, faction and the abolitionist faction. Douglas vehement- ly opposed the Lecompton Constitution, and criticized President James Buchanan’s support of such a measure. After much violence and debate, Kansas was admitted as a free state. ABRAHAM LINCOLN and Douglas were oppo- nents in the Illinois senatorial election of 1858, and they met seven times throughout their campaign to debate the issues. Thes e arguments were the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, and several of Douglas’s responses won him disfavor with southern Demo crats. Although he won the senatorial election, this faction was res ponsible for Douglas’s removal from the Committee on Territories. In 1860 Douglas fared better with the Democrats, and his Popular Sovereignty policy was incorporated into the national program. He was chosen as the Democratic candidate for the presidential election. The southern Demo- crats still refused to accept him and supported their own candidate, John C. Breckinridge. Both Douglas and Breckenridge lost the election to the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Douglas staunchly supported the newly elected Lincoln. Adept at public speaking, Douglas’s last contri- bution to government was a tour of the Northwest to encourage support of the Union, during which he contracted a fatal case of typhoid fever. Douglas died June 3, 1861, in Chicago, Illinois. CROSS REFERENCE Kansas-Nebraska Ac t. v DOUGLAS, WILLIAM ORVILLE William Orville Douglas, a legal educator, NEW DEAL reformer, environmental advocate, and prolific author, was an outspoken and contro- versial associate justice on the U.S.Supreme Court during much of the twentieth century. For more than 36 years, under six presidents and five chief justices, Douglas’sopinions—including an unequaled 531 dissents—touched and shaped the momentous constitutional questions and crises of the Depression, WORLD WAR II,theCOLD WAR ,theKOREAN WAR,theCIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, the VIETNAM W AR, the rise of the welfare state, and the fall of RICHARD M. NIXON. Asserting that the purpose of the Constitu- tion is to “keep the government off the backs of the people,” Douglas became a champion of civil liberties on the high court in seminal cases interpreting FREEDOM OF SPEECH, privacy, PORNOG- RAPHY , TREASON, the rights of the accused, the limits of the military, the limits of Congress, and even the limits of the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES . As an outspoken New Deal reformer and a popular libertarian, he was courted by the DEMOCRATIC PARTY for high political office, and likewise excoriated by leading Republicans who three times tried to IMPEACH him. A man of enormous energy, he did not confine his public views to opinions from William Orville Douglas 1898–1980 ❖ 1898 Born, Maine, Minn. ◆ 1925 Graduated from Columbia Law School ◆ 1951–52 Defended First Amendment free speech rights in dissents in Dennis v. U.S. and Alder v. Board of Education of NYC 1939 Appointed associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by FDR 1953 Halted execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg 1954 Played leading role in Brown v. Board of Ed. decision; Almanac of Freedom published 1980 Died, Washington, D.C.; The Court Years published 1965 Wrote majority opinion for Griswold v. Connecticut, striking down state laws that prohibited contraceptive use ◆ ❖ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ 1936–39 Served as member and chairman of SEC 1973 Voted with majority in Roe v. Wade; tried to bring Vietnam War to end by judicial decree 1975 Forced to resign; tried to stay on as "unofficial" tenth justice 1914–18 World War I 1961–73 Vietnam War 1939–45 World War II 1950–53 Korean War ▼▼ ▼▼ 19001900 19501950 19751975 20002000 19251925 GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION DOUGLAS, WILLIAM ORVILLE 9 the U.S. Supreme Court alone, but wrote more than 30 books on a variety of legal and social topics. As an engaging storyteller, vigorous outdoorsman, and blunt social critic, he was irresistible to the liberal press, under whose influence he was named Father of the Year in 1950. At his death in 1980, he was lionized as an outstanding protector of freedoms. Since his death, however, historians have criticized both his public career and his private life. From his position on the U.S. Supreme Court, he twice flirted with a place on the presidential ticket—with FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT in 1944 and with HARRY S. TRUMAN in 1948— despite the clear opposition of his Court colleagues. He wrote his opinions faster, and with less scholarship or collegial cooperation, than any of his fellow justices. His lifelong stream of books, which referred to him as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on their covers, showed a similar haste to regard primarily his own views as he exhorted the nation impatiently on foreign policy, anthropology, RELIGION, his- tory, law, economics, and the environment. Unprecedented for a U.S. Supreme Court justice, he advocated public issues in extralegal activities around the world, creating difficulties for both the Court and the federal government at large. He claimed that J. Edgar Hoover had bugged the inner conference room of the Supreme Court Building and that Hoover had had FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) agents plant marijuana on his mountain retreat property in Goose Prairie, Washington; when no evidence of these activities was ever found, he refused to recant. When a stroke at age 75 left him paralyzed in a wheelchair, wracked with pain, and periodically incoherent, he nonethe- less refused to resign his seat in the high court until forced to do so through the extraordinary efforts of his colleagues. And even then, he insisted on lingering in his judicial office for months, demanding attention as though he were still on the Court. This brilliant and complex man was born October 16, 1898, in Maine, Minnesota. He grew up in small towns of rural Minnesota, California, and Washington as his family moved in search of a climate that would preserve the frail health of his father, a hardworking Presbyterian minister of Scottish pioneer ancestry. Douglas’s father died in Washington when the boy was five, leaving the family with only a meager inheri- tance, which a local attorney immediately squandered on a foolish investment. Douglas’s widowed mother, Julia Bickford Fiske Douglas, had saved just enough to buy a house for the family in Yakima (Washington), across the street from the elementary school, where she raised Douglas and his two siblings on the virtues of hard work and high ambition as preparation for success in life. All three of the children achieved success in school and in professional life, but William was brilliant: valedictorian of his high school class, Phi Beta Kappa at Whitman College, and second in his class and on the LAW REVIEW at Columbia Law School. Polio had stricke n Douglas when he was an infant, and the local doctor had advised the family that he would never fully recover the us e of his legs and that he probably would be dead by age 40. His mother, who had favored her firstborn with the name Treasure, went to wo rk massaging the muscles of his legs vigorously in two-hour shifts around the clock for months, telling him that he would recover to run again “ li ke the wind,” thewayshehad as a girl. He not only recovered the use of his legs but, as an adolescent, put himself on a merciless discipline of hiking miles per day in the mountains u nder full pack, to strengthen William O. Douglas. PHOTGRAPH BY HARRIS & EWING. COLLECTION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 10 DOUGLAS, WILLIAM ORVILLE his legs to the point of outstanding endurance, determined that no one would ever call him puny. In 1920 he graduated from Whitman College, in Walla Walla, Washington, and returned home for two years to teach English, Latin, and public speaking in Yakima High School. He pursued a Rhodes Scholarship unsuc- cessfully, and then decided to hitchhike by rail across the country to enter Columbia Law School, although he did not yet possess the money for tuition. While in law school, in 1924 he married Mildred Riddle, with whom he had his only two children, Millie Douglas and WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS Jr. The marriage ended in divorce 29 years later. After graduating from Columbia Law School in 1925, he practiced in a Wall Street firm for one year before joining the faculty at Columbia. A year later, he went to teach at Yale, where he specialized in corporate law and finance, writing respected casebooks and gaining recognition as an expert in those fields. Desperate for a cure for the continuous headaches and stomach pains that had plagued him since his days on Wall Street, he briefly undertook psychoanalysis at Yale. Following the stock market crash of 1929, Douglas did original and painstaking work with the help of sociologist Dorothy S. Thomas, interviewing failed businesses in BANKRUPTCY court to determine the causes of their loss. He was asked to head a study committee of the SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION (SEC)in 1934. In 1936 he became a member of the SEC, and in 1937 he was appointed chairman with the man date from Franklin D. Roosevelt to reform practices of the stock exchange that had led to the great crash. In 1939 Roosevelt had Douglas, then chairman of the SEC, hailed off a golf course to meet immediately with him at the White House. “I have a new job for you,” the president said in the Oval Office. “It’sajobyou’ll detest.” Pausing dramatically to light up a cigarette, the president continued, “I am sending your name to the Senate as Louis Brandeis’ successor.” Douglas was stunned. At age 40, he was about to become the second-youngest U.S. Supreme Court justice in history. Douglas was sworn in on April 17, 1939, and quickly helped to constitute a new majority on the Court that supported Roosevelt’sNew Deal l aws regulating the economy. Within two years, he had opposed the Court’s leading personality, FELIX FRANKFURTER, and its reigning philosophy of defending civil liberties from the BILL OF RIGHTS in cases involving religious freedom and the rights of the accused. It was the beginning of a two-decade battle with Frank- furter and his philosophy of judicial restraint. This conflict did not end amicably, but it helped to transform Douglas into a champion of civil liberties. After World War II, Douglas joined forces frequently with Justice Hugo L. Black and later Justice William J. Brennan Jr. in applying the Bill of Rights to protect individual liberties. In 1951, when fears of COMMUNISM exacer- bated by the public ravings of Senator JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY overtook the nation, Douglas’sdissent in Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S. Ct. 857, 95 L. Ed. 1137 (1951), defended the FIRST AMENDMENT free speech rights of Eugene Dennis and ten other members of the American Communist Party who admitted teaching the works of KARL MARX, Friedrich Engels, VLADIMIR LENIN ,andJOSEPH STALIN.Douglasarguedthat despite current fears of communist influence in U.S. society, their speech alone presented no CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to the nation. Similarly, in dissent, he defended the First Amendment rights of several New York schoolteachers who had challenged the state’sFeinberglaw(Educ. Law N.Y.S. 3022) giving authorities the right to compile a list of subversive organizations to which a teacher could not belong. Douglas wrote that teachers need the guarantee of free expres- sion more than anyone and that the Feinberg Law “turned the school system into a spying project” (Alder v. Board of Education of City of New York, 342 U.S. 485, 72 S. Ct. 380, 96 L. Ed. 517 [1952]). During this same period, he vigorously opposed the expanding use of government wire tapping enabled by the 1929 decision in OLMSTEAD V. UNITED STATES, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S. Ct. 564, 72 L. Ed. 944 (1928) . Writing for the public in his book Almanac of Freedom (1954), Douglas declared that “wire tapping, wherever used, has a black record. The invasion of privacy is ominous. It is dragn et in character, recording everything that is said, by the innocent as well as by the guilty.… wire tapping is a blight on the civil liberties of the citizen.” In 1953 Douglas single-handedly halted the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the defendants in the most sensational spy trial THE FIFTH AMENDMENT IS AN OLD FRIEND AND A GOOD FRIEND … ONE OF THE GREAT LANDMARKS IN MAN ’S STRUGGLE TO BE FREE OF TYRANNY , TO BE DECENT AND CIVILIZED . —WILLIAM O. D OUGLAS GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION DOUGLAS, WILLIAM ORVILLE 11 of the cold war (Rosenberg v. United States, 346 U.S. 273, 73 S. Ct. 1173, 97 L. Ed. 1607 [1953]). After voting four times not to hear the case, he finally ordered a stay at the last possible minute, and then headed off on vacation. Unable to reach Douglas en route, the other justices called a special session to vacate the stay, and the Rosenbergs were executed. Douglas’s colleagues accused him of grandstanding. His enemies in Congress accused him of treason, and he survived three IMPEACHMENT attempts led by GERALD R . FORD. Ford, eager to be rid of Douglas, declared that “an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Repre- sentatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.” However, Douglas was not a traitor but an adamant civil libertarian, unwilling to let the heavy hand of the government crush any individual’s rights. During the tenure of Chief Justice EARL WARREN (1953–69), Douglas found more frequent majorities for his activist philosophy. He took a leading role in reaching a majority for the 1954 Brown decision ( BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA , KANSAS, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686, 98 L. Ed. 873 [1954]) desegregating public schools, telling his colleagues simply that “a state can’t classify by color in education.” He argued in dissent in several cases that the Bill of Rights was applicable to the states through the Due Process Clause of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT,anargu- ment that the Court finally accepted in MAPP V. OHIO, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961), which held the FOURTH AMENDMENT provision prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures applicable to the states. He supported each of the Warren Court’s major decisions extending the rights of criminal suspects, including the RIGHT TO COUNSEL,inGIDEON V. WAINWRIGHT, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S. Ct. 792, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799 (1963), and the right to be advised of one’s constitutional rights before being interro- gated, in MIRANDA V. ARIZONA, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966). In 1965 Douglas wrote for the ma jority in GRISWOLD V. CONNECTICUT, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510, striking down a state law that prohibited the use of contrac eptives. In the opinion, he argued that, taken together, the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments created a constitutional right to privacy. This may have been Douglas’s most influential single opinion on the Court. He argued that the government did not belong in the bedroom, which was one of the “zones of privacy” protected by “penumbras” emanating from the specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights. Criticism of the Griswold opinion was fierce. But based on this right to privacy, a majority of the Court, Douglas concurring, would vote for a woman’s right to have an ABORTION in ROE V. WADE, 410 U. S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 (1973). Douglas made no secret of his long-standing dislike for the Vietnam War. In the fall of 1967, he dissented from the Court’s decision not to review several cases that might have raised the issue of the legality of the Vietnam War. On August 4, 1973, in a solitary performance reminiscent of the Rosenberg stay of execution, acting from the Yakima courthouse near his summer vacation home, Douglas reinstated a lower-court order to stop the Nixon adminis- tration’s bombing of Cambodia and, in effect, bring the Vietnam War to a halt by judicial decision. Douglas wrote that only Congress could declare war, and Congress had not done so. Six hours later, eight members of the Court reversed him by the telep hone polling of Justice THURGOOD MARSHALL. In his most personal relationships, Douglas was a tyrant. He sternly demanded the back- breaking 16-hour days and six-day weeks from his law clerks that he loved to put in himself (when a clerk asked for time off to get married, Douglas granted him 24 hours’ leave), but never allowed them signif icant responsibilities for his opinions. One clerk said, “It was a master/slave relationship” (Simon 1980). He married four times while serving on the Supreme Court, to successively younger women: after Riddle, Mercedes Davidson (1953), whom he met in Washington, D.C.; Joan Martin (1962), a 23-year-old college student who had written her senior thesis in praise of him; and Catherine Heffermin (1965), a 21-year-old college student whom he met while she was working as a waitress. Most of his wives found him distant, demanding, and faithless. The 860 pages of his two-volume autobiography (The Court Years, 1980) are filled with words of revenge upon his personal and political enemies but contain less than a page for his wife of 29 years, Riddle. He was so inept and cold as a father that his two children fled him. As his son put it, “Father was scary.” Felled by a stroke in 1974, Douglas became confined to a wheelchair pushed by an aide, wracked by constant pain, glazed by medication, and increasingly incoherent. But he would not GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 12 DOUGLAS, WILLIAM ORVILLE resign. He tried to return to the Court in 1975, refusing all advice to the contrary. His presence was embarrassing to the Court and impossible to sustain. He officially resigned on November 12, 1975, but tried to hang on to an unofficial role as the Court’s tenth justice. When even his clerks would not support his fantasy, he prepared a statement of farewell to be read to the justices on his behalf while he sat in his wheelchair. His farewell compared the relationship he had shared with his Court colleagues to the slow warm growth of friendships on a camping trip in the wilderness. His colleagues wept. Douglas died on January 19, 1980, in Washington, D.C. Douglas had shattered the popular view of the high court as a somber gathering of elderly people in black robes pondering the weighty truths of the Constitution. His irrepressible per- sonality, extralegal activities, popular book writ- ing, and serial marriages brought unprecedented color and controversy to the Court. A libertari- an by disposition and principle, he would not easily allow the government to abridge the liberties of others, nor would he conform to the traditional role of U.S. Supreme Court justice. FURTHER READINGS Douglas, William O. 1980. The Court Years: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas. New York: Random House. ———. 1954. An Almanac of Liberty. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. ———. 1974. Go East, Young Man: The Early Years: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas. New York: Random House. Murphy, Bruce Allen. 2003. Wild Bill: The Legend and Life of William O. Douglas. New York: Random House. Simon, James F. 1980. Independent Journey: The Life of William O. Douglas. New York: Harper & Row. Woodward, Bob, and Scott Armstrong. 2005. The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court. New York: Simon & Schuster. CROSS REFERENCES Communist Party Cases; Rosenbergs Trial. v DOUGLASS, FREDERICK A very influential African American leader of the nineteenth century, FREDERICK DOUGLASS used his exceptional skills as an orator, writer, journalist, and politician to fight for the abolition of SLAVERY and for an end to racial discrimina- tion. He helped to shape the climate of public opinion that led to the RATIFICATION of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amend- ments to the U.S. Constitution, which were created in large measure to protect, respectively, the freedom, citizenship, and voting rights of ex-slaves. His Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) is a classic account of the dehumanizing effects of slavery for slave and slaveholder alike. According to his own calculations, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in Febru- ary 1817, on a plantation west of the Tuckahoe River in Talbot County, Maryland. (As an adult, he celebrated his birthday on February 14.) His mother was a black slave, and his father most likely her white owner. Douglass was separated from his mother at an early age, and at age seven he was sent to Baltimore to work for a family. He later regarded this change from the plantation to the city as a great stroke of fortune because in Baltimore he was able to begin educating himself. His master’s wife taught him the alphabet, and Douglass, under the tutelage of young boys on the streets and docks, proceeded to teach himself how to read and Frederick Douglass 1817(?)–1895 ❖ ❖ ◆ 1817 Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, Talbot County, Md. ◆ 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass published; forced to flee to British Isles 1861–65 U.S. Civil War ◆ 1838 Escaped north and settled in New Bedford, Mass.; changed name to Frederick Douglass 1895 Died, Washington, D.C. 1877–81 Served as marshal for District of Columbia ◆ ◆ ▼▼ ▼▼ 1800 1850 1875 1900 1825 1847 Able to return to the States; settled in Rochester, N.Y.; founded the North Star 1888–91 Served as minister resident and consul general to Haiti ◆ 1868 14th Amendment gave citizenship rights to former slaves 1870 15th Amendment established right of all male citizens to vote 1881–86 Served as recorder of deeds for D.C. 1865 13th Amendment abolished slavery ◆ 1872 Became first African American nominated for vice president NO MAN CAN PUT A CHAIN ABOUT THE ANKLE OF HIS FELLOW MAN WITHOUT AT LAST FINDING THE OTHER END FASTENED ABOUT HIS OWN NECK . —FREDERICK DOUGLASS GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION DOUGLASS, FREDERICK 13 write. Even when he was very young, his limited reading convinced him of the evils of slavery and the need to seek his freedom. Douglass continued to suffer under slavery. At times during the 1830s, he was sent back to the plantation to endure its scourges, including beatings and whippings. He briefly attempted to teach fellow slaves to read and write, but his efforts were quickly put to an end by whites. In 1838, living again in Baltimore and caulking ships, Douglass escaped north and won his freedom. He married a free African American woman, Anna Murray, and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. By then a fugitive slave, he changed his name to Frederick Douglass in order to avoid capture. Douglass quickly became a respected member of the community in New Bedford. However, he was disappointed to find that racism was prevalent in the North as well as in the South. Shortly after his arrival in the North, Douglass became an avid reader of the Liberator, a newspaper published by a leading abolitionist, WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. He became involved in abolitionist campaigns and soon earned a reputation as an eloquent speaker for the cause. In 1841 he met Garrison and was recruited to speak for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Throughout his life, he would travel all over the United States on speaking engagements, becoming a famous and sought-after orator. In part to refute those who did not believe that someone as eloquent as he had once been a slave, Douglass published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in 1845. The book became a bestseller and made Douglass into a celebrity. It also made known his status as a fugitive slave, and he was forced to flee to the British Isles for safety in 1845. During his travels, he was greatly impressed by the relative lack of racism in Ireland, England, and Scotland. English friends purchased his legal freedom in 1846, paying his old master $711.66. Upon his return to the States in 1847, Douglass settled in Rochester, New York, and founded his own abolitionist newspaper, the North Star. In its pages, he published writers and focused on achievements. He also wrote highly influential editorials f or the paper. Douglass published a series of newspapers, including Frederick Douglass’ Weekly, until 1863. Douglass continued to lecture widely and became sympathetic to other reformist causes of the day, including the temperance, peace, and feminist movements. By the 1850s and 1860s, he increasingly came to doubt that slavery could be ended b y peaceful means. He became friends with the militant abolitionist JOHN BRO WN, although he did not join Brown in his ill-fated 1859 military campaign against slavery at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. During the Civil War (1861–65), Douglass fought hard to make the abolition of slavery a Union goal, and he also lobbied for the enlistment of s into the Union armed forces. In public speeches and even in private meetings with President ABRAHAM LINCOLN,Douglassmade his case forcefully. Aided by rising sentiment against slavery in the North, both of Douglass’s goals became a reality. Lincoln’s 1863 EMANCIPA- TION PROCLAMATION sent a strong signal that the North would seek the abolition of slavery in the South, and in 1865, the THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT to the Constitution formally ended the institu- tion of slavery in the United States. By the end of the war, nearly 200,000 African Americans had enlisted in the Union armed forces. Douglass personally helped to enlist men for the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Colored Regiments and served as a leading advocate for the equal treatment of African Americans in the military. Frederick Douglass. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 14 DOUGLASS, FREDERICK After the Thirteenth Amendment had been ratified in 1865, some abolitionists pronounced their work finished. Douglass argued that much more remained to be done, and he continued to struggle for the rights of former slaves. He called for voting rights, the repeal of racially discrimi- natory laws, and the redistribution of land in the South. Although disappointed that land redistribution was never achieved, he was encouraged by the passage of the Fourteenth (1868) and Fifteenth (1870) Amendments, which, respectively, protected aga inst the in- fringement of constitutional rights by the states and established the right of all citizens to vote. Although these constitutional amendments appeared to guarantee the CIVIL RIGHTS of newly- freed African American, the actual laws and practices of states and localities continued to discriminate against blacks. They were also harassed by violence from private groups. The KU KLUX KLA N waged a campaign of terror against blacks who sought to exercise their civil rights, and white lynch mobs killed hundreds of men each year. Douglass spoke out against these forms of terrorism and called for federal laws against LYNCHING. Douglass was a loyal spokesman for the REPUBLICAN PARTY and vigorously campaigned for its candidates. His support helped to gain hundreds of thousands of black votes for Republicans. As a result of such work, several Republican presidents rewarded him with politi- cal offices. In 1871 President ULYSSES S. GRANT named him assistant secretary to the Santo Domingo Commission. Later, Republican pre- sidents appointed him marshal (1877–81) and recorder of deeds (1881–86) for the District of Columbia. In 1888 President BENJAMIN HARRISON appointed Douglass minister resident and consul general to Haiti, the first free black republic in the Western Hemisphere. He resigned the position in 1891 over policy differences with the Harrison administration. Although such positions did not afford Dou- glass great political power in themselves, they provided a comfortable living as well as some recognition for his significant contribu- tions to the public life of the country. Douglass was also the first African American ever to be nominated for the vice presidency. He declined the nomination, which had come from the little known Equal Rights Party in 1872. Until the end of his life, Douglass continued to lecture and write for the cause of freedom. He died on February 20, 1895, in Washington, D.C., after attending a meeting of the National Council of Women. FURTHER READINGS Chesnutt, Charles. 2002. Frederick Douglass. Mineola, NY: Dover. Available online at http://www.gutenberg.org/ etext/10986; website home page: http://www.gutenberg. org (accessed July 20, 2009). Douglass, Frederick. 2008. The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Blacksburg, Va.: Wilder McKivigan, John R., ed. 2004. Frederick Douglass. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven. Mieder, Wolfgang. 2001. “No Struggle, No Progress”. Frederick Douglass and His Proverbial Rhetoric for Civil Rights. New York: Lang. Miller, Douglas T. 2002. Frederick Douglass and the Fight for Freedom. New York: Replica. Moses, Wilson Jeremiah. 2004. Creative Conflict in African American Thought. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press. CROSS REFERENCES Celia, a Slave; Civil Rights Acts; Civil Rights Cases; Dred Scott v. Sandford; Jim Crow Laws; Prigg v. Pennsylvania. DOWER The provision that the law makes for a widow out of the lands or tenements of her husband, for her support and the nurture of her children. A species of life estate that a woman is, by law, entitled to claim on the death of her husband, in the lands and tenements of which he was seised in fee during the marriage, and which her issue, if any, might by possibility have inherited. The life estate to which every married woman is entitled on the death of her husband, intestate, or, in case she dissents from his will, one-third in value of all lands of which her husband was beneficially seized in law or in fact, at any time during coverture. The real property must be inheritable by the wife’s offspring in order for her to claim dower. Even if, however, their marriage produces no offspring, the wife is entitled to dower as long as any such progeny of her husband would qualify as his heirs at the time of his death. Prior to the death of the husband, the interest of the wife is called an INCHOATE right of dower, in the sense that it is a claim that is not a present interest but one that might ripen into a legally enforceable right if not prohibited or divested. It is frequently stated that an inchoate right of dower is amere EXPECTANCY and not an estate. The law governing dower rights is the law in existence at the time of the husband’s death and not the law existing at the time of the marriage. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION DOWER 15 The courts, however, protect the inchoate right of dower from a FRAUDULENT conveyance— a transfer of property made to defraud, delay, or hinder a creditor, or in this case, the wife, or to place such property beyond the creditor’s reach—by the husband in contemplation of, or subsequent to, the marriage. Protection is also available against the claims of creditors if the claims arose after the marriage. The posting of security can be required to protect the interest if oil, gas, or other substances are removed from the land, which thereby results in a deprecia- tion—a reduction of worth—with respect to the value of the estate. Decisions supporting a contrary view take the position that a wife cannot interfere with her husband’s complete enjoyment of the land during his lifetime. A wife can relinquish her inchoate right of dower by an antenuptial agreement—which is a contract entered into by the prospective spouses prior to the marriage that resolves issues of support, division of property, and distribution of wealth in the event of death, separation, or divorce—or by a release, that is, the relinquishment of a right, claim, or privilege. The claim of dower is based upon proof of a legally recognized marriage, as distinguished from a GOOD FAITH marriage or a DE FACTO marriage— one in which the parties live together as husband and wife but that is invalid for certain reasons, such as defects in form. A voidable marriage, one that is valid when entered into and which remains valid until either party obtains a lawful court order dissolving the marital relationship, suffices for this purpose if it is not rendered void—of no legal force or binding effect—before the right to the dower arises. Most states have varied the dower provi- sions. The fraction of the estate has frequently been increased from one-third to one-half. The property affected has been expanded from realty only to both realty and PERSONALTY. The time of ownership has sometimes been changed from “owned during marriage” to “owned at death.” The type of interest given to the sur- viving spouse has been expanded from a LIFE ESTATE to outright ownership of property. In many states, a widow is entitled to a statutory share in her husband’s estate. This is often called an ELECTIVE SHARE because the surviv- ing spouse can choose to accept the provisions made for her in the decedent’swilloracceptthe share of the property specified by law of DESCENT AND DISTRIBUTION or the particular law govern- ing the elective share. In many jurisdictions, dower has been abolished and replaced by the elective share. In others, statutes expressly pro- vide that a spouse choose among the elective share, the dower, or the provisions of the will. COMMON LAW prescribes that an absolute DIVORCE will bar a claim of dower. A legal separation—sometimes labeled a divorce from bed and board, a mensa et thoro—does not end the marital relationship. Unless there is an express statute, such a divorce will not defeat a claim of dower. This is also true with respect to an INTERLOCUTORY decree of divorce, an interim or temporary court order. In some states, statutes provide that dower can be denied upon proof of particular types of misconduct, such as ADULTERY, which is volun- tary sexual intercourse of a married person with a person other than his or her spouse. Statutes in several states preserve dower if a divorc e or legal separation is obtained due to the fault of the other spouse. In many states, statutes provide that a murderer is not entitled to property rights in the estate of the victim upon the principle that a person must not be allowed to profit from personal wrong. Following this theory, a CONSTRUCTIVE TRUST will be declared in favor of the heirs or devisees of the deceased spouse. FURTHER READINGS Blackstone, William. 1765. Commentaries on the Laws of England. Reprint, Clark, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange, 2003. Brand, Paul. 2001. “‘Deserving’ and ‘Undeserving’ Wives: Earning and Forfeiting Dower in Medieval England.” Journal of Legal History 22 (April). “Dower and Maintenance.” Woman and Her Rights. Available online at http://www.al-islam.org/Woman Dower is the provision the law makes for a widow in the distribution of her husband’s estate. AP IMAGES GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION 16 DOWER Rights/7.htm; website home page: http://www.al-islam. org (accessed September 2, 2009). CROSS REFERENCE Premarital Agreement. DOWN PAYMENT A percentage of the total purchase price of an item that is proffered when the item is bought on credit. In an installment sales agreement, a buyer is required to pay part of the total price, usually in cash, and later pays the balance through a number of regularly scheduled payments. A down payment is sometimes known as EARNEST MONEY, or a sum of money that a buyer pays upon entering a contract to indicate a GOOD FAITH intention as well as an ability to pay the balance. DRACONIAN LAWS A code of laws prepared by Draco, the celebrated lawgiver of Athens, that, by modern standards, are considered exceedingly severe. The term draconian has come to be used to refer to any unusually harsh law. DRAFT A written order by the first party, called the drawer, instructing a second party, called the drawee (such as a bank), to pay money to a third- party, called the payee. An order to pay a sum certain in money, signed by a drawer, payable on demand or at a definite time, to order or bearer. A tentative, provisional, or prepara tory writ- ing out of any document (as a will, contract, lease, and so on) for purposes of discussion and correction, which is afterward to be prepared in its final form. Compulsory CONSCRIPTION of persons into military service. Also, a small arbitrary deduction or allowance made to a merchant or importer, in the case of goods sold by weight or taxable by wei ght, to cover possible loss of weight in handling or from differences in scales. A draft that is payable on demand is called a SIGHT DRAFT because the drawee must comply with its terms of payment when it is presented, in his or her sight or presence, by the payee. In contrast, a time draft is one that is payable only on the date specified on its face or thereafter. WESTERN HEMISPHERE TRADING COMPANY Troy/Deckerville, Michigan USA Draft No.: Date: / / Reference: Advising Bank: For Value Received, At SIGHT of this Bill of Exchange Pay to the Order of Ourselves the Sum of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and 00/100 U.S. Dollars (US$ xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xx) Drawn under Issuing Bank, Xxxxx, Xxxxx, Documentary Credit LC No.: Dated : / / TO: ISSUING BANK WESTERN HEMISPHERE TRADING COMPANY Street Address City Country by: _______________________________________________ _ ( Authorized Signature ) South Pacific Ocean O cean North A Arctic Ocean United States of America U.S.A. Canada Mexico Brazil Argentina Uruguay Paraguay Chile Bolivia Peru Ecuador Colombia Venezuela French Guiana (Fr.) Suriname Guyana The Bahamas Cuba Dominican Republic Panama Costa Rica Nicaragua Honduras Guatemala El Salvador Trinidad and Tobago Jam. Haiti Puerto Rico (US) Green l Belize Barbados Dominica Banks Island Victoria Island Baffin Island Ellesmere Island Island of Newfoundla n Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) (a d Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) 120˚ 60˚ 6 0˚ Sight Draft A sample sight draft. ILLUSTRATION BY GGS CREATIVE RESOURCES. REPRODUCED BY PER- MISSION OF GALE, A PART OF CENGAGE LEARNING. GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3 RD E DITION DRAFT 17 . leading advocate for the equal treatment of African Americans in the military. Frederick Douglass. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 14 DOUGLASS, FREDERICK After the. HARRIS & EWING. COLLECTION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION 10 DOUGLAS, WILLIAM ORVILLE his legs to the point of outstanding endurance, determined. A GOOD FRIEND … ONE OF THE GREAT LANDMARKS IN MAN ’S STRUGGLE TO BE FREE OF TYRANNY , TO BE DECENT AND CIVILIZED . —WILLIAM O. D OUGLAS GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION DOUGLAS,