Fighting Domestic Terrorism and Creating the Department of Justice: The Extraordinary Leadership of Attorney General Amos T. Akerman
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Fighting Domestic Terrorism and
Creating the Department of
Justice: The Extraordinary
Leadership of Attorney General
Amos T. Akerman
Gretchen C.F. Shappert
United States Attorney
District of the Virgin Islands
I. Introduction
Most federal prosecutors are
familiar with the Judiciary Act of
1789, which established the
federal court system, an
attorney for the United States
in each judicial district, and
office of the Attorney General.1
Most prosecutors, however, are
unfamiliar with the early history
of the Department of Justice
(Department) and the first
Attorney General to preside over
the Department. They have
never heard of Amos Tappan
Akerman, the Thirty-First
Attorney General of the
United States and one of the
most consequential leaders in
the Department's history.
Historian William S. McFeely
argues that no Attorney General
Portrait of Amos T. Akerman
painted by artist Freeman Thorp
in 1875.
has been more vigorous in the
1 The Act is officially titled 'An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the
United States [' [and] was signed into law by President George Washington
on September 24, 1789. Primary Documents in American History, Judiciary
Act of 1789, LIBR. OF CONGRESS, https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/
judiciary.html (last visited Sept. 26, 2019).
DOJ Journal of Federal Law and Practice
January 2020
125](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/usab68&div=18&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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