'A rift in the clouds': Southern federal judges and African-American civil rights, 1885-1915

This dissertation examines three southern federal judges who broadly interpreted the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and called upon the federal government to protect the civil rights of African Americans. In particular, they asserted that the federal government possessed the authority to punish individuals who discriminated against African Americans on the basis of their race, color or previous condition of servitude. Although rejected by the political leaders of the white South and by the United States Supreme Court, their rulings have been vindicated in recent decades as both historians and the American legal community have come to accept the broad interpretation of the Reconstruction-era amendments. It is argued in this dissertation that the three judges sought to protect the civil rights of African Americans primarily out of a desire to create a "New South". They wanted the South to follow the North's lead in developing a diverse, industrialized economy that would bring prosperity to the region. In order to reach this goal, they believed it was necessary for the South to first establish social stability and to exhibit a respect for law and order. only under such conditions would foreigners and other Americans be willing to invest in southern business ventures. In their opinion, the repression and exploitation of African Americans hindered the development of such conditions and frightened potential investors. In addition, they believed that racial oppression would merely cause African Americans to grow more resentful and to increase their demands for equal justice. Such a state of affairs, they predicted, would only lead to greater tensions and conflicts between the races in the future.