University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review Volume 41 Issue 2 The Ben J. Altheimer Symposium-- Article 3 Cooper v. Aaron: Still Timely at Sixty Years 2019 Domestic Constitutional Violence F. E. Guerra-Pujol Follow this and additional works at: https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/lawreview Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the Supreme Court of the United States Commons Recommended Citation F. E. Guerra-Pujol, Domestic Constitutional Violence, 41 U. ARK. LITTLE ROCK L. REV. 211 (2019). Available at: https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/lawreview/vol41/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Bowen Law Repository: Scholarship & Archives. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review by an authorized editor of Bowen Law Repository: Scholarship & Archives. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. DOMESTIC CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE F. E. Guerra-Pujol I. INTRODUCTION We often associate violence with extra-legal behavior1 or with the dark side of law enforcement.2 But violence has also played a pivotal role in our nation’s history and in the development of constitutional law. Simply put, our government has often resorted to acts of “constitutional violence”3 to effectuate major constitutional change. Consider the stain of slavery. From a practical perspective, it was not the formal enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment that eradicated this peculiar institution. Rather, it was the blood spilled in such costly battles as Bull Run, Chickamauga, and Gettysburg that settled the festering constitutional question of slavery once and for all.4 The same logic applies to school desegregation and the Little Rock Crisis of 1957.