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 />etext/10986; website home page: enberg.
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 />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: -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