ABSTRACT
The persecution of Japanese-Americans during World War II, with its ugly barbed-wire evocation of concentration camps, is probably the most galling instance of the Constitution failing to live up to its myth of courage. After the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, many Americans assumed that the Japanese would assault the West Coast, where most Japanese-Americans lived. Residents of coastal areas reported strange lights flashing from the coast, which they took to be Japanese-American traitors signaling to enemy ships. The cases reached the Supreme Court in 1943. One year was already gone from the lives of the Japanese-Americans. The court made matters worse by dodging the issue. The American leadership knew that Imperial Japan could not threaten the US mainland. The new general in charge of West Coast defense certified that internment could not be justified by any military reason.
