Part 5 Chapter 40 Summary

Like Part III, Part IV was phrased in terms of the attorney general seeking injunctions "in the name of the United States." This was the only condition under which American citizens could be deprived of their right to a jury trial in cases of criminal contempt. Southern senators would not compromise on removing this threat. Westerners, who remembered the jailing of railroad strikers on these grounds, were also wary of omitting some protection. Wyoming's elderly Joseph C. O'Mahoney, an ardent New Dealer, had vowed when FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937, that he would never allow such undemocratic measures to reach the Senate again, so he introduced the amendment that the South demanded. Till's murderers had been acquitted only two months earlier, so liberals were adamant that Part IV not be watered down. The Douglas Group vowed to fight...