Section I: The right to dissent: the journalists who demanded it. John Adams versus Cooper, Bache, and Duane : a president's attempt to shut down the opposition -- Thomas Jefferson and the Editors' Campaign : the recovery begins -- James Madison and Hanson : protecting speech during war -- Section II: Legal personhood: Frederick Douglass and the promise of "We the people." James Buchanan versus Frederick Douglass : a fake neutrality -- Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass : the transformation of a president -- Andrew Johnson versus Frederick Douglass : a new threat in the midst of recovery -- Ulysses Grant and the Douglass constituency : securing the right to vote amid violence -- Section III: Equal protection: the long march against second-class citizenship. Woodrow Wilson versus Trotter and Wells : nationalizing white supremacy -- Harry Truman and Sadie Alexander : to secure these rights once more -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Martin Luther King Jr. : the road to recovery -- Section IV: The rule of law: the battle for presidential accountability. Richard Nixon versus Daniel Ellsberg and Grand Jury One : criminality in the Oval Office -- Coda: Our current crisis

This meticulously researched account of assaults on democracy by five presidents who imprisoned critics, spread a culture of white supremacy and committed crimes with impunity shows how citizens like Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells and Daniel Ellsberg fought back against presidential abuses of power