On June 22, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Act to Establish the Department of Justice into law. On its face, it was a bureaucratic consolidation–an attempt to streamline the legal functions of the federal government. More profoundly, it was a moral commitment: an effort to give federal teeth to the principles enshrined in the Reconstruction amendments. In the wake of civil war, the DOJ emerged to protect equal protection, due process, and the radical belief that the law should serve even those who had just emerged from bondage.Read More
Law, not loyalty
