Matthew Johnson Us Marshal

They sing songs about Matthew Johnson. The hero of dime novels, Matt won national fame during a range war in Idaho when he shot and killed an outlaw—and former saddle pal. But the past seventeen years have been an alcoholic blur rather than a heroic journey. Gone are the days when he was a free-wheeling cowboy, swapping poems with his best friend on the cattle ranges. The West has modernized—and practically disappeared—when Matt arrives in Denver in 1894 as the newly appointed US marshal for the state of Colorado. The cowboy turned lawman inherits a state on the brink of collapse. The silver crash has ruined the economy, railroaders are striking, a range war is looming, corruption is rampant, and a rumored gold strike on the Southern Ute reservation threatens to turn into a bloodbath. Slowly, Matt realizes why he got the job. His supporters figure that the man who killed Jeff Hancock will either stay too drunk to realize what’s happening or take their bribes and look the other way. After all, the songs being sung about Matthew Johnson these days are more insulting than glorifying. Instead of the hero who stopped a range war, he is usually thought of as a man who murdered his best friend in exchange for the appointment as Idaho’s US marshal. And he hasn’t been sober in years. What no one has counted on is the love of a woman who has had her own share of hard times and bad decisions. Or the fact that there’s a special breed of man who will fight with his last breath to regain his dignity and self-respect. If Matt can overcome his demons and past, schoolkids might start singing a new verse to an old song.

They sing songs about Matthew Johnson. The hero of dime novels, Matt won national fame during a range war in Idaho when he shot and killed an outlaw — and former saddle pal. But the past seventeen years have been an alcoholic blur rather than a heroic journey.

If you're looking for a book that will place you in the middle of the explosive divisiveness of the "slave issue" in America on the eve of Civil War, look no further. This case was a cause celbre that typified the tensions that were pulling the nation apart. One of the most combustible issues was the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act that made it illegal to prevent slaves in free states from being returned to their owners. In 1858, a group of Oberlin, Ohio men defied that law by snatching a slave man named John Price from the hands of the Marshall, returning him to Oberlin, and hiding him in the home of James Harris Fairchild, a future president of Oberlin College. John Price was spirited away to Canada, from where he could not be extradited. The Ohio men were put on trial and the case burst onto the national scene. Here is the trial with all the eloquent and passionate arguments that won great sympathy for the defendants. It is a fascinating case tried with intelligence and not a little amount of humor. In the end, did justice prevail? Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers, tablets, and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

Justice and Legal Change on the Shores of Lake Erie explores the many ways that the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio has affected the region, the nation, the development of American law, and American politics. The essays in this book, written by eminent law professors, historians, political scientists, and practicing attorneys, illustrate the range of cases and issues that have come before the court. Since the court’s inception in 1855, judges have influenced economic developments and social issues, beginning with the court’s most famous early case, involving the rescue of the fugitive slave John Price by residents of Northern Ohio. Chapters focusing on labor strikes, free speech, women’s rights, the environment, the death penalty, and immigration illustrate the impact this court and its judges have had in the development of society and the nation’s law. Some of the cases here deal with local issues with huge national implications xad—like political corruption, school desegregation, or pollution on the Cuyahoga River. But others are about major national issues that grew out of incidents, such as the prosecution of Eugene V. Debs for opposing World War I, the litigation resulting from the Kent State shootings and opposition to the Vietnam War, and the immigration status of the alleged Nazi war criminal John Demyanjuk. This timely history confirms the significant role played by district courts in the history of the United States.

Examines the impact fugitive slaves had on the Fugitive Slave Law and the coming of the American Civil War.

During the tumultuous decade before the Civil War, no issue was more divisive than the pursuit and return of fugitive slaves—a practice enforced under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. When free Blacks and their abolitionist allies intervened, prosecutions and trials inevitably followed. These cases involved high legal, political, and—most of all—human drama, with runaways desperate for freedom, their defenders seeking recourse to a “higher law” and normally fair-minded judges (even some opposed to slavery) considering the disposition of human beings as property. Fugitive Justice tells the stories of three of the most dramatic fugitive slave trials of the 1850s, bringing to vivid life the determination of the fugitives, the radical tactics of their rescuers, the brutal doggedness of the slavehunters, and the tortuous response of the federal courts. These cases underscore the crucial role that runaway slaves played in building the tensions that led to the Civil War, and they show us how “civil disobedience” developed as a legal defense. As they unfold we can also see how such trials—whether of rescuers or of the slaves themselves—helped build the northern anti-slavery movement, even as they pushed southern firebrands closer to secession. How could something so evil be treated so routinely by just men? The answer says much about how deeply the institution of slavery had penetrated American life even in free states. Fugitive Justice powerfully illuminates this painful episode in American history, and its role in the nation’s inexorable march to war.