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History >> The Lawmen
>> General Practitioners
Continued from Broad Range of Authority
This is an excerpt from The Lawmen: United States
Marshals and Their Deputies: 1789-1989, by Frederick S. Calhoun |
| General
Practitioners
|
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These diversified duties precluded the
Marshals from developing any particular specialty. They were law
enforcers, but also administrators. They needed to be adept in
accounting procedures and pursuing outlaws. in quelling riots and
arranging court sessions. The legacy of their history was the avoidance
of specialization. Even today. in this age of experts, U.S.
Marshals and their Deputies are the general practitioners within the law
enforcement community. As the government's generalists, they have proven
invaluable in responding to rapidly changing conditions. Although other
Federal agencies are restricted by legislation to specific well-defined
duties and jurisdictions, the Marshals are not. Consequently, they
arc called upon to uphold the government's interests and policies in a
wide variety of circumstances. For the American people, the Marshals personified the authority of the federal government within their communities. The frequent outbursts of opposition to Federal power that characterize much of American history were often first directed at individual Marshals or Deputies. The Marshal, in effect, was the point of contact in the friction between the national government and local communities. The Whiskey Rebels of 1794, for example, violently opposed a national tax on whiskey. They expressed that opposition by taking Marshal David Lenox prisoner. Similar reactions obtained toward such noxious federal measures as the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, the post-Civil War Reconstruction Acts, and the desegregation of the South in the 1960s. |
| Detail from
the painting, "Enter the Law", by Edward Ward, 1925. As the nation expanded westward, The U.S. Marshals were the only Federal law enforcement organization in the unorganized territories. |
