Great Depression – Constituting America

Guest Essayist: Professor William Morrisey

Faithful readers of Constituting America’s 90-Day Study have followed the story of our constitution through each of our presidential elections. We have seen that the moral foundations of both of our constitutions—the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution that replaced it—find their most cogent expression in the Declaration of Independence. There, the Founders held the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Governments must therefore be framed to secure those unalienable rights. Our God-endowed, or natural, rights—regulated by the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God—find security in our legal or civil rights, defended by a system of government so structured as to channel the ambitions of political men and women toward the guardianship of those rights. This requires a regime designed to empower the government so our rights can be defended effectively against those who threaten them, at home or abroad. At the same time, the powers of that government will check and balance one another, so that no single individual or group of individuals will likely usurp all those powers, setting us on the road to tyranny. America’s early Constitutional conflicts centered on the question of how much power should be placed in the hands of the national government vis-à-vis the states’ governments. But whether Federalists or Anti-Federalists, Hamiltonians or Jeffersonians, all of the principal founders aimed at securing the natural rights of Americans by the means of well-designed constitutional forms.

July 21, 2016/2 Comments/by Janine Turner

2008, Barack Obama: Forty-Fourth President of the United States

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2016, Juliette Turner 6. Presidential Elections and Their Constitutional Impact, 13. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 17. Topics, 2008 Barack Obama Forty-Fourth President of the United States, Great Depression, Juliette Turner, Supreme Court

Guest Essayist: Juliette Turner

Barack Obama: Forty-Fourth President of the United States

Nickname: The First African-American President

Terms in Office: 2009-2013; 2013-present

Fast Stats

Born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii
Parents: Barack Obama Sr. and Stanley Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro
Barack Obama is still living and in office
Age upon Start of First Term: 47; Age upon Conclusion of First Term: 51
Age upon Start of Second Term: 51
Religious Affiliation: Congregationalist (Protestant)
Political Party: Democrat
Height: 6 feet 1 inch
Vice President: Joseph Biden

Bottom Line

President Obama is the current president of the United States and is serving his second term in office. Obama passed his landmark legislation, the Affordable Care Act; oversaw the capture and death of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden; and enforced a multibillion dollar stimulus in an attempt to help the economy. He has struggled with a scandal regarding the surveillance of the American people by the federal government and an ever-growing debt and deficit.

June 27, 2016/0 Comments/by Janine Turner

1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower Defeats Aldai Stevenson

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2016, James Legee 6. Presidential Elections and Their Constitutional Impact, 13. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 17. Topics, 1956 Dwight D. Eisenhower Defeats Aldai Stevenson, Cold War, Communism, James Legee, New Deal, Progressive

Guest Essayist: James Legee

The election of 1956 saw Adlai Stevenson again tasked with the unenviable duty of an electoral contest against Dwight D. Eisenhower, which, it will come as no surprise, did not end in Stevenson’s favor. Eisenhower is well known to students of history and government, Stevenson, a one-term governor of Illinois, barely garners a mention in most books on the Cold War. Despite his loss, Stevenson was an important bridge between the New Deal policies of the Roosevelt administration and the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson. He articulated a progressive platform that would guide the Democratic Party for the coming decades in regards to domestic policy. Electoral defeat is quite common for ideologues and intellectuals on both ends of the ideological spectrum, but part and parcel with his intellectual bend came a truly unique rhetoric for the role of government in society.

May 31, 2016/1 Comment/by Janine Turner

1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt Defeats Thomas Dewey: Constitutional Implications Of Roosevelt’s Liberal Internationalism, United Nations

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2016, Tony Williams 6. Presidential Elections and Their Constitutional Impact, 13. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 17. Topics, 1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt Defeats Thomas Dewey Constitutional Implications Of Roosevelt’s Liberal Internationalism United Nations, Bill of Rights, Communism, Great Depression, New Deal, Progressive, Tony Williams, World War II

Guest Essayist: Tony Williams

Global War and Peace: The 1944 Election

In his 1944 State of the Union address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt offered a “Second Bill of Rights” that redefined the rights of the founding bill of rights. This radical pronouncement promised economic security and “positive rights” guaranteed by the federal government.

May 24, 2016/2 Comments/by Janine Turner

1932, The “New Deal”

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2016, Tony Williams 6. Presidential Elections and Their Constitutional Impact, 13. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 1932 The “New Deal”, Tony Williams

Guest Essayist: Tony Williams

In 1932, the U.S. economy reached its nadir during the Great Depression. Unemployment had risen to more than 20 percent, or 11 million Americans, matched by a similar number of the underemployed as factories and businesses closed their doors. Banks were closing at an alarming rates as people instantly lost their life savings. Hundreds of thousands of farmers and urban dwellers alike were suffering forecloses and lost their homes. Breadlines were long and strained the resources of private charities and local governments.

May 18, 2016/2 Comments/by Janine Turner

1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt Defeats Herbert Hoover: How The Great Depression Threatened Constitutionalism

6. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 90 in 90 2016, Daniel Cotter 6. Presidential Elections and Their Constitutional Impact, 13. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt Defeats Herbert Hoover How The Great Depression Threatened Constitutionalism, Daniel Cotter

Guest Essayist: Daniel A. Cotter

The 1932 Presidential election took place during the height of the Great Depression. While a number of candidates ran on third party tickets, the main fight for the White House featured the incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover against Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt and none of the other candidates garnered more than 2% of the popular vote. Hoover had won the presidential election in 1928 on a pro-business platform promising continued prosperity. Nine months into Hoover’s term, on October 24, 1929, the stock market crashed, beginning the period that would become known as the Great Depression. The challenges created by the downward economic spiral consumed Hoover’s term and were a main focus of the 1932 presidential election.

May 17, 2016/2 Comments/by Janine Turner