46-577: The Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice enforces federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race , sex , disability, religion , and national origin. The division was established on December 9, 1957, by order of Attorney General William P. Rogers , after the Civil Rights Act of 1957 created the head office of Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights (AAG-CR; appointed by
92-548: A "Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team" during the Aspen Cyber Summit. Edward Bates Edward Bates (September 4, 1793 – March 25, 1869) was an American lawyer, politician and judge. He represented Missouri in the US House of Representatives and served as the U.S. Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln . A member of the influential Bates family , he was the first US Cabinet appointee from
138-491: A Kentucky lawyer with Radical Republican views. Bates returned to Missouri after leaving the cabinet. He participated in the conservative struggle over ordinances related to the Missouri constitution of 1865. Bates particularly objected to the "ironclad oath" that was required as a proof of loyalty by residents. He also disapproved of the temporary disfranchisement of rebel sympathizers. He wrote seven essays arguing against
184-594: A full-time job, in 1867, the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary , led by Congressman William Lawrence , conducted an inquiry into the creation of a "law department" headed by the attorney general and also composed of the various department solicitors and United States attorneys . On February 19, 1868, Lawrence introduced a bill in Congress to create the Department of Justice. President Ulysses S. Grant signed
230-673: A prominent member of the Whig Party . He also represented Lucy Delaney in a successful freedom suit . After the breakup of the Whig Party in the early 1850s, he briefly joined the American Party before he became a member of the Republican Party . He was a candidate for president at the 1860 Republican National Convention , but Lincoln won the party's nomination. Bates was appointed as attorney general in 1861, at
276-532: A single term (1827–1829). Next, he was elected to the State Senate from 1831 to 1835, then to the Missouri House from 1835. He ran for the U.S. Senate , but lost to Democrat Thomas Hart Benton . Bates became a prominent member of the Whig Party during the 1840s, where his political philosophy closely resembled that of Henry Clay . While a slaveholder, during this time Bates became interested in
322-614: A small operation, with a staff of six. The main function was to generate legal opinions at the request of Lincoln and cabinet members, and handle occasional cases before the Supreme Court. Lincoln's cabinet was full of experienced lawyers who seldom felt the need to ask for his opinions. Bates had no authority over the US Attorneys around the country. The federal court system was handled by the Interior Department;
368-662: A state west of the Mississippi River . Born in Goochland County, Virginia , in 1814 Bates moved to St. Louis , where he established a legal practice. He was appointed as the first attorney general of the state of Missouri in 1820. Over the next 30 years, he won election to a single term in Congress and served in both the Missouri House of Representatives and the Missouri Senate , becoming
414-464: A website that supported the USA PATRIOT Act . It was criticized by government watchdog groups for its alleged violation of U.S. Code Title 18 Section 1913, which forbids money appropriated by Congress to be used to lobby in favor of any law, actual or proposed. The website has since been taken offline. On October 5, 2021, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco has announced the formation of
460-603: The Justice Department , is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United States. It is equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries. The department is headed by the U.S. attorney general , who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of
506-801: The Louisiana Territory and Secretary of the Missouri Territory. Edward Bates studied the law with Rufus Easton and boarded with his family. Easton was Judge of the Louisiana Territory, the largest jurisdiction in U.S. history since the Louisiana Purchase . After being admitted to the bar, Bates worked as a partner with Easton. In 1817, the two organized the James Ferry, which ran from St. Charles, Missouri to Alton, Illinois . Easton had founded
SECTION 10
#1732772064223552-752: The Missouri Supreme Court . Bates was, for the most part, happy with his large family. His four sons had various roles during the Civil War. His oldest son, Barton Bates , served on the Supreme Court of Missouri during the war. Son John C. Bates served in the US Army and later became Army Chief of Staff . Son Fleming Bates fought with the Confederates , under the command of General Sterling Price . This caused tension between
598-483: The arbitrary arrest of southern sympathizers and seditious northerners. On the other hand, as Lincoln's policies became more radical, Bates became increasingly irrelevant. Bates disagreed with Lincoln on emancipation and the recruitment of blacks into the Union Army. In 1864, Lincoln nominated Salmon P. Chase to be Chief Justice , an office Bates had wanted. Bates then resigned and was succeeded by James Speed ,
644-574: The federal government took on some law enforcement responsibilities, and the Department of Justice was tasked with performing these. In 1884, control of federal prisons was transferred to the new department, from the Department of the Interior . New facilities were built, including the penitentiary at Leavenworth in 1895, and a facility for women located in West Virginia , at Alderson
690-657: The Attorney General's office in the Department of Justice Main Building in Washington, D.C. The building was renamed in honor of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 2001. It is sometimes referred to as "Main Justice". The Justice Department also had a War Division during World War II . It was created in 1942 and disestablished in 1945. Several federal law enforcement agencies are administered by
736-472: The Constitution. Both Akerman and Bristow used the Department of Justice to vigorously prosecute Ku Klux Klan members in the early 1870s. In the first few years of Grant's first term in office, there were 1000 indictments against Klan members, with over 550 convictions from the Department of Justice. By 1871, there were 3000 indictments and 600 convictions, with most only serving brief sentences, while
782-498: The Department of Justice) "who prosecutes on behalf of justice (or the Lady Justice)". The motto's conception of the prosecutor (or government attorney) as being the servant of justice itself finds concrete expression in a similarly-ordered English-language inscription ("THE UNITED STATES WINS ITS POINT WHENEVER JUSTICE IS DONE ITS CITIZENS IN THE COURTS") in the above-door paneling in the ceremonial rotunda anteroom just outside
828-536: The Department of Justice. Similarly the Office of Domestic Preparedness left the Justice Department for the Department of Homeland Security, but only for executive purposes. The Office of Domestic Preparedness is still centralized within the Department of Justice, since its personnel are still officially employed within the Department of Justice. In 2003, the Department of Justice created LifeAndLiberty.gov,
874-537: The Department of Justice: In March 2003, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service was abolished and its functions transferred to the United States Department of Homeland Security . The Executive Office for Immigration Review and the Board of Immigration Appeals , which review decisions made by government officials under Immigration and Nationality law, remain under jurisdiction of
920-485: The Department of the Interior, the prosecution of all federal crimes, and the representation of the United States in all court actions, barring the use of private attorneys by the federal government. The law also created the office of Solicitor General to supervise and conduct government litigation in the Supreme Court of the United States . With the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887,
966-491: The Republican Party's 1860 presidential nomination . Bates initially received support from Horace Greeley , who later switched to support Abraham Lincoln . The next year, after winning the election, Lincoln appointed Bates United States Attorney General , an office Bates held from 1861 until 1864. Bates was the first Cabinet member to be appointed from a state or territory west of the Mississippi River . There
SECTION 20
#17327720642231012-468: The Treasury handled claims. Most of the opinions turned out by Bates's office were of minor importance. Lincoln gave him no special assignments and did not seek his advice on Supreme Court appointments. Bates did have an opportunity to comment on general policy as a cabinet member with a strong political base, but he seldom spoke up. Following unsuccessful efforts in 1830 and 1846 to make attorney general
1058-553: The U.S. federal government in litigation: the Criminal , Civil , Antitrust , Tax , Civil Rights , Environment and Natural Resources , National Security , and Justice Management Divisions . The department also includes the U.S. Attorneys' Offices for each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts . The U.S. Congress created the Justice Department in 1870 during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant . The Justice Department's functions originally date to 1789, when Congress created
1104-455: The United States, contradicting Dred Scott v. Sandford . When pressed for clarification by Robert Charles Winthrop , Bates confirmed that citizenship rights were the same regardless of race, and that state laws limiting free Black migration and settlement were unconstitutional. Bates's tenure as Attorney General generally met with mixed reviews. On the one hand, he was important in carrying out some of Lincoln's earlier war policies, including
1150-569: The adoption of a new state constitution in Missouri. Bates was born in Goochland County, Virginia to Thomas Fleming Bates and his wife, the former Caroline Matilda Woodson (1749–1845). His father was a Goochland County native, having been born on his family's Belmont plantation , and served in the local militia, including at the Siege of Yorktown at the end of the American Revolutionary War . Like his siblings and others of
1196-443: The bill into law on June 22, 1870. Grant appointed Amos T. Akerman as attorney general and Benjamin H. Bristow as America's first solicitor general the same week that Congress created the Department of Justice. The Department's immediate function was to preserve civil rights. It set about fighting against domestic terrorist groups who had been using both violence and litigation to oppose the 13th , 14th , and 15th Amendments to
1242-900: The constitution, but it was ratified. It was notable for abolishing slavery in the state, passed three weeks before the US Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery in the US. Bates retired from politics, although he commented on political events in the local newspapers. He died in St. Louis in 1869 and was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery . Bates married Julia Coalter from South Carolina . They had 17 children together. She had come to St. Louis to visit her brother David Coalter and her sister Caroline J. Coalter. Her sister Caroline married Hamilton R. Gamble (another attorney and Unionist), who ultimately became chief justice of
1288-414: The freedom suit of Polly Berry , an enslaved woman who in 1843 gained her freedom decades after having been held illegally for several months in the free state of Illinois. After she gained her freedom, Berry enlisted Bates's support as her attorney in the separate freedom suit she filed for her daughter Lucy Ann Berry , then about age 14. According to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem , since
1334-462: The latter town, naming it after his first son Alton. Bates's private practice partner was Joshua Barton , who was appointed as the first Missouri Secretary of State . Barton became infamous for fighting duels on Bloody Island (Mississippi River) . In 1816 Bates was the second to Barton in a duel with Thomas Hempstead, brother of Edward Hempstead , the Missouri Territory's first Congressional representative. The fight ended without bloodshed. Barton
1380-576: The mother had been proved a free woman at the time of her daughter's birth, the court ruled that Lucy was also legally free. During this time, Orion Clemens , brother of Mark Twain , studied law under Bates. While Bates is considered by some modern scholars as "generally unsympathetic to the cause of African American freedom," he emancipated all of his slaves and had paid for his last former slave's passage to Liberia by 1851. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore asked Bates to serve as U.S. Secretary of War , but he declined. Charles Magill Conrad accepted
1426-470: The office of the Attorney General. The office of the attorney general was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789 as a part-time job for one person, but grew with the bureaucracy . At one time, the attorney general gave legal advice to the U.S. Congress , as well as the president ; however, in 1819, the attorney general began advising Congress alone to ensure a manageable workload. Until 1853,
United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division - Misplaced Pages Continue
1472-536: The original intended meaning of the Latin motto appearing on the Department of Justice seal, Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur (literally "Who For Lady Justice Strives"). It is not even known exactly when the original version of the DOJ seal itself was adopted, or when the motto first appeared on the seal. The most authoritative opinion of the DOJ suggests that the motto refers to the Attorney General (and thus, by extension, to
1518-513: The planter class, Bates was tutored at home as a boy. When older, he attended Charlotte Hall Military Academy in Maryland . Edward Bates served in the War of 1812 before moving to St. Louis , Missouri Territory , in 1814 with his older brother James, who started working as an attorney. Their eldest brother Frederick Bates was already in St. Louis by that time, where he had served as Secretary of
1564-561: The position. At the Whig National Convention in 1852 , Bates was considered for nomination as vice-president on the party ticket, and he led on the first ballot before losing on the second ballot to William Alexander Graham . After the breakup of the Whig Party in the 1850s, Bates briefly joined the Know-Nothing Party but then joined the Republican Party . Bates was one of the four main candidates for
1610-520: The president and confirmed by the Senate). In 2021, Kristen Clarke became the first woman confirmed to the position. The Division enforces In addition, the Division prosecutes actions under several criminal civil rights statutes which were designed to preserve personal liberties and safety. United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice ( DOJ ), also known as
1656-687: The president's Cabinet . The current attorney general is Merrick Garland , who has served since March 2021. The Justice Department contains most of the United States' federal law enforcement agencies , including the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the U.S. Marshals Service , the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives , the Drug Enforcement Administration , and the Federal Bureau of Prisons . The department also has eight divisions of lawyers who represent
1702-629: The ringleaders were imprisoned for up to five years in the federal penitentiary in Albany, New York . The result was a dramatic decrease in violence in the South. Akerman gave credit to Grant and told a friend that no one was "better" or "stronger" than Grant when it came to prosecuting terrorists. George H. Williams , who succeeded Akerman in December 1871, continued to prosecute the Klan throughout 1872 until
1748-412: The salary of the attorney general was set by statute at less than the amount paid to other Cabinet members. Early attorneys general supplemented their salaries by running private law practices, often arguing cases before the courts as attorneys for paying litigants. The lightness of the office is exemplified by Edward Bates (1793–1869), Attorney General under Abraham Lincoln (1861 to 1864). Bates had only
1794-436: The spring of 1873, during Grant's second term in office. Williams then placed a moratorium on Klan prosecutions partially because the Justice Department, inundated by cases involving the Klan, did not have the manpower to continue prosecutions. The "Act to Establish the Department of Justice" drastically increased the attorney general's responsibilities to include the supervision of all United States attorneys, formerly under
1840-616: The start of the American Civil War . He successfully carried out some of the administration's early war policies, but he disagreed with Lincoln on the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation . He did not support full civil and political equality for Blacks. Bates resigned from the Cabinet in 1864 after he had been passed over for a US Supreme Court appointment. After leaving office, he unsuccessfully opposed
1886-425: Was completed in 1935 from a design by Milton Bennett Medary . Upon Medary's death in 1929, the other partners of his Philadelphia firm Zantzinger, Borie and Medary took over the project. On a lot bordered by Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues and Ninth and Tenth Streets, Northwest, it holds over 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m ) of space. Various efforts, none entirely successful, have been made to determine
United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division - Misplaced Pages Continue
1932-615: Was established in 1924. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order which gave the Department of Justice responsibility for the "functions of prosecuting in the courts of the United States claims and demands by, and offsenses [ sic ] against, the Government of the United States, and of defending claims and demands against the Government, and of supervising the work of United States attorneys, marshals, and clerks in connection therewith, now exercised by any agency or officer..." The U.S. Department of Justice building
1978-439: Was handled by the Interior Department; the Treasury handled claims. Most of the opinions turned out by Bates's office were of minor importance. Lincoln gave him no special assignments and did not seek his advice on Supreme Court appointments. Bates did have a voice on general policy as a cabinet member with a strong political base, but he seldom spoke out. At age 68 he was the oldest high-level Lincoln appointee, and from late 1863
2024-505: Was in poor health. One key Bates decision involved the question of Black citizenship. In the summer of 1862, a ship sailing out of New Jersey had been detained by customs because its captain was African American. Ship captains were required to be US citizens, and according to the Dred Scott decision Black Americans were not considered citizens. In an opinion published in mid-December, Bates recognized free African Americans as citizens of
2070-476: Was killed in a duel on the island in 1823. Bates's first foray into politics came in 1820, with election as a member of the state's constitutional convention. He wrote the preamble to the state constitution. He was appointed as the new state's Attorney General . In 1822, Bates was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives . He was elected to the United States House of Representatives for
2116-430: Was no Justice Department until 1870. Bates had only a small operation, with a staff of six. The main function was to generate legal opinions at the request of Lincoln and cabinet members, and handle occasional cases before the Supreme Court. The cabinet was full of experienced lawyers who seldom felt the need to ask for his opinions. Bates had no authority over the US Attorneys around the country. The federal court system
#222777