Conspiracy
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a secret agreement or combination between two or more peract that sons to commit any unlawful may injure any third person or persons. Every act of conspiracy is a misdemeanor at common law. In June, 1900, the House Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Congress, reported a bill that aroused widespread interest in the labor and business world because it contained a definition of the word conspiracy. The bill provided "That no agreement, combination or contract by or between two or more persons to or procure to be done, or not to do or procure not to be done, any act in contemplation or furtherance of any trade dispute between employers and employees in the District of Columbia or any Territory of the United States, or who may be engaged in interstate or foreign trade or commerce, shall be deemed criminal, nor shall those engaged therein be indictable or otherwise punishable for the crime of conspiracy if such act committed by one person would not be punishable as a crime, nor shall any restraining order or injunction be issued with relation thereto. Provided, that the provisions of this act shall not apply to threats to injure the person or the property, business or occupation of any person, firm, association or corporation, to intimidation or coercion, or to any acts causing or intended to cause an illegal interference by overt acts with the rights of others. "Nothing in this act shall exempt from punishment, otherwise than as herein excepted, any persons guilty of conspiracy for which punishment is now provided by any act of Congress, but such act of Congress shall, as to the agreements, combinations and contracts hereinbefore referred to, be construed as if this act were therein contained."
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 treats "conspiracy" as purely a matter of criminal law, and the burning question of the day was whether trade unionists could be prosecuted for agreeing to do together what any one of them could lawfully do alone. That fight was largely settled against the prosecutors: the Clayton Act of 1914 declared that labour unions were not illegal combinations, and the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 stripped federal courts of the power to issue the injunctions Collier's describes. The claim that "every act of conspiracy is a misdemeanor at common law" no longer describes American practice either: the general federal conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C. ying up to five years' imprisonment) makes it a felony, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 built a whole prosecutorial architecture on conspiracy and agreement. The larger change is in the word itself, which in ordinary speech now means far less a chargeable offence than an alleged hidden plot, through the phrase "conspiracy theory" that became common only after the mid-twentieth century.
Written for this edition, 2026.