Law: When the Dogs Stopped Snapping

In a posthumous book, Justice Douglas reviews his court years

The purpose of the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas liked to say, is "to keep the Government off the backs of the people." Douglas was speaking from personal conviction. Especially in his later years, he believed that Government was not only out to subvert the Constitution but to get its chief defender, William O. Douglas.

With some reason. Douglas claims that Richard Nixon, in cahoots with then House Minority Leader Gerald Ford, once sicked 40 federal agents on Douglas in a...