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60 Nw. U. L. Rev. 277 (1965-1966)
Constitutional Tort: Monroe v. Pape, and the Frontiers Beyond

handle is hein.journals/illlr60 and id is 291 raw text is: Ntweste -nivef LAW REVIEW VOLUME 6o JULY-AUGUST NUMBER 3 CONSTITUTIONAL TORT: MONROE v. PAPE, AND THE FRONTIERS BEYOND* Marshall S. Shapot INTRODUCTION T HIS paper will analyze the jurisprudential development of a federal statutory remedy-the civil section of what is popularly known as the Ku Klux Act. It is well to begin this study with a narrative parallel. When Congress was debating the Act in 1871, Congressman Niblack of Indiana read into the record a story told in 1869 by a South Carolina Negro named Joshua Wardlaw. Wardlaw's story was that a white man with whom he was residing got him out of bed one night and forced him out of his house, along with his screaming wife and brother-in-law. Then, said Wardlaw, Pres. Blackwell kicked one of my little children that was in the bed. They took my brother-in-law's gun and broke it against a tree in the yard. They laid me down on the ground, after stripping me as naked as when I came into the world, and struck me five times with a strap before I got away from them. After escaping they fired four shots at me, but did not hit me. I was so frightened I laid out in the woods all night, naked as I was, and suffered from the exposure. Mr. Richard- son afterward told me that he was very sorry that I had escaped from them. My brother-in-law died from the beating he got .... I This tale of horror is almost mirrored in the allegations of a modern- day complaint filed in the federal district court for Northern Illinois. The plaintiff, a Chicago Negro named James Monroe, alleged that thirteen city. policemen broke through two doors of his apartment at 5:45 a.m., woke him and his wife with flashlights, forced them at gunpoint to leave their bed and stand naked in the center of the living room . . . roused the six Monroe children and herded them into the living room . . . Detective Pape struck Mr. Monroe several times with his flashlight, calling him nigger and black boy .. . another officer pushed Mrs. Monroe . .. other officers * This article was originally prepared as a graduate essay at Harvard Law School. t Assistant Professor, University of Texas Law School. 1 CONG. GLOBE, 42d Cong., Ist Sess. 390 (1871) (quoting from record of South Carolina legislative investigating committee, June 24, 1869). Citations from the Congressional Globe for this session hereafter will be designated as GLOBE; in the case of material in the Globe Appendix for that session, the citation will be APP.