Did The Bill Of Rights Exist In The "Old West"?
The coffee pot thread got me thinking about this.
In the movie Silverado there is a scene in which Danny Glover is refused service in a bar because he’s black. Two townies attack him, he defends himself and the local sheriff stops the brawl.
In spite of clear eyewitness testimony that Glover acted in purely self defense, the sheriff kicks him out of town without any type of due process.
The sheriff then demands that the two witness state their reason for being in “his” town at all.
Now I know that Silverado was a movie but stuff like that was actually fairly common in the “Old West”.
In Thomas Ripley’s Biography of John Wesley Hardin, They Died With Their Boots On he recounts at least two instances where Hardin was caught in a dragnet where the state police simply rounded up and questioned every drifter in town and arrested those who couldn’t give a satisfactory account of themselves.In one instance Hardin was detained in a dragnet that included everyone in that particular town who was leaving the state.
Wild Bill Hickok was known for kicking people out of Abilene just because he didn’t like their reputation or thought they might cause trouble (again no due process) and the Earps banned any carry of weapons (unless you were a friend of theirs) in Tombstone.
I wonder if anyone ever tried to sue over the Civil Rights violations
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Retired Career Security Guard
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