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Pardons: Discretionary Mercy and the Rule of Law in Britain and America, 1066-2026

Coming Soon Pardons: Discretionary Mercy and the Rule of Law in Britain and America, 1066-2026

Pardons: Discretionary Mercy and the Rule of Law in Britain and America, 1066-2026

Name: Pardons: Discretionary Mercy and the Rule of Law in Britain and America, 1066-2026
Brand: Cambridge University Press
SKU: 9781047755214
Price: 650.00 HKD
Availability: PreOrder
Author: Frank O. Bowman III
ISBN: 9781047755214

By Frank O. Bowman III

Coming Soon Cambridge University Press Available October 2026

Specifications

ISBN-13: 9781047755214
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication: October 2026
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

Pardons is an unprecedented history of the pardon power, chronicling how British monarchs and American presidents have wielded clemency to afford mercy, reconcile societies, and exert executive supremacy. The book traces the pardon power from its origins as an attribute of absolute monarchy to its adoption by the American Framers as one of the few enumerated powers of the president of the United States. It tells the stories, human and political, of all forty-five presidents who have wielded the pardon power and of those they pardoned. The book argues that the increasing abuse of presidential clemency and the effective elimination of impeachment and criminal prosecution as constraints on presidential misconduct have made the pardon power a threat to the rule of law. To address this growing danger, Pardons calls for presidential pardon powers to be eliminated or transferred to Congress by constitutional amendment.

Introduction

1. Pardons and kingship in Britain from 1066 to the 1788

2. Pardons in the British North American Colonies, 1607–1775

3. Pardons in America in the revolutionary period 1775–787

4. The founders' pardon power

5. Presidential pardons from George Washington James Buchanan, 1789–1861

6. Pardons and amnesties during the civil war – Lincoln's clemency, 1861–1865

7. Pardons and amnesties during reconstruction, Part I. The Presidency of Andrew Johnson:

8. Pardons and amnesties during reconstruction, Part II. The presidencies of Ulysses Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes (1869–1881):

9. Pardons from the end of reconstruction to the eve of World War I: James Garfield through William Howard Taft

10. Pardons in the era of the administrative state and global war: Woodrow Wilson through Lyndon Johnson

11. The pardon process begins to wither: Nixon, Ford, and Carter (1968–1980)

12. Reagan to Obama (1981–2017) – The near-death and brief, controversial resurrection of the pardon power as a tool of federal criminal justice reform

13. Pardons as tools of political warfare: Donald Trump's first term

14. The pardons of Joe Biden and Trump's second term

15. The law of pardons: general rules

16. The law of pardons: congress and the pardon power

17. The law of pardons: the imagined power of self-pardon

18. Executive discretion and the rule of law: pardons, presidential immunity and impeachment

19. The constitution should be amended to abolish or modify the presidential pardon power.

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