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On April 15, 1970, at President Richard Nixon's behest, Republican House Minority Leader Gerald Ford brazenly called for the impeachment of Douglas, the nation's leading liberal judge--and the House Judiciary Committee responded with a six-month investigation, while the Senate awaited a potential trial that never occurred. Ford's actions against Douglas mirrored the anger that millions of Americans, then as now, harbored toward changing social, economic, and moral norms, and a federal government seemingly unconcerned with the lives of everyday working white Americans. Those actions also reflected, as this book reveals, what came to be known as the Republicans' "southern strategy," a cynical attempt to exploit the hostility of white southern voters toward the civil rights movement. Kastenberg describes the political actors, ambitions, alliances, and maneuvers behind the move to impeach Douglas--including the Nixon administration's vain hope of deflecting attention from a surprisingly unpopular invasion of Cambodia--and follows the ill-advised effort to its ignominious conclusion, with consequences that resonate to this day.

Marking a turning point in American politics, The Campaign to Impeach Justice William O. Douglas is a sobering, cautionary tale, a critical chapter in the history of constitutional malfeasance, and a reminder of the importance of judicial independence in a politically polarized age.