Are We Taking The Sex Offender Label Too Far? - Rhode Island Bar ...

cive action. This rule by oligarchy in a
period of extensive Irish Catholic immigration
gave rise to the Dorr Rebellion.
Thomas Wilson Dorr was a prince of
the gentry but he turned against his class
and supported the so-called “People’s
Constitution” which gave the vote to
adult white males who had lived in the
state for a year. The establishment held a
Landowners’ Convention which drafted
its own new constitution in 1843, keeping
the property qualification for naturalized
citizens. Competing elections were
held, and Dorr was chosen the People’s
governor while the incumbent Samuel
Ward King was elected by the landholders.
After various maneuvers, including
an unsuccessful appeal to President Tyler
and support from Tammany Hall, Dorr
led an abortive military raid on an
armory. Another restrictive constitution
was put in place, and Dorr was arrested
and sentenced to life imprisonment for
treason. He was released after twenty
months but, his health broken, he died in
1854 at the age of forty-nine. The dominant,
nativist Rhode Islanders won again
when, in 1849, the United States Supreme
Court upheld their position, in Luther
v. Borden, by refusing to adjudicate the
substantive issues and first enunciating
the doctrine of “political questions.”
Thus Rhode Island remained dominated
by a malapportioned, rural-centered legislature
into the 1960s.
And the Dorr feud is with us today.
The contemporary movement to pardon
the last person hanged in Rhode Island,
John Gordon in 1845, derives from the
biased and unfair process that occurred
at the height of the Dorr controversies.
Gordon’s attorneys and supporters were
colleagues of Dorr and the Governor and
the Judge were from the Law and Order
landowner party. (See Patrick T. Conley,
“The Origins of the Governor’s
Pardoning Power,” Rhode Island Bar
Journal, Vol. 59, No. 6, May/June 2011 at
31.) On a related note, this past summer,
Rhode Island Governor Chafee posthumously
pardoned Gordon, based, on the
arguments noted in Attorney Conley’s
piece referenced above.
Reading tastes differ, of course. But
for those who like a good evening’s reading
on historical constitutional issues,
serious, but not law review heavy, this
book satisfies.
The reviewed book is a 2010 publication of the
Rhode Island Publications Society, Providence.
❖
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n t it.
We
have
it.
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Rhode Island Bar Journal November/December 2011 29