The United States Supreme Court: Landmark Decisions and the Justices Who Made Them

90-Day Study 2017

The United States Supreme Court:
Landmark Decisions and the Justices Who Made Them
2017 90-Day Study Schedule

https://constitutingamerica.org/the-united-states-supreme-court-landmark-decisions-and-the-justices-who-made-them-2017/

 

INTRODUCTION

Essay #1 – Introduction – Why Study the Landmark Decisions? What does it mean to “constitute” America? The Constituting America website already features a clause-by-clause analysis of the constitution, articles written by an array of Constitutional scholars. The next step, the one we invite you to take with us now, is to study the ways in which our Supreme Court justices have interpreted the Constitution as they addressed disputes over its meaning brought to them by their fellow citizens. To dispute the meaning of the Constitution is to dispute the meaning of the American form of government, the American regime. The questions underlying every case that comes before the Supreme Court has always been: What is the American republic?

 

JUDICIAL POWERS

 

Essay #2 – Marbury v. Madison (1803) – When the Court resumed hearing cases in February 1803, one of the first orders of business was deciding Marbury v. Madison, which presented the question of whether Adams had the power to issue the appointments to a number of “midnight judges,” including Marbury. Marbury v. Madison (1803), a landmark decision establishing the Supreme Court’s role.


Essay #3 – Chief Justice John Marshall (1755-1835) – The longest-serving Chief Justice in our history, author of every major Supreme Court ruling in the first third of the nineteenth century—including the one establishing the principle of judicial review—John Marshall earned undisputed honor as “the Great Chief Justice.” Marshall always had before him an example of self-government who did soar on eagle’s wings, a man not only great but conspicuously great: George Washington. His friend and Supreme Court colleague Joseph Story called him a “federalist of the Washington School.” So he had been, before and after the short life of the Federalist Party, first as a young soldier in Washington’s army at Valley Forge and the Battle of Monmouth, then as a rising Virginia politician in the 1790s, as an ambassador to France during the Adams administration, and finally, while a Supreme Court justice at the height of his powers, years after Washington’s death, author of a history of the Revolutionary War seen through the prism of Washington’s life and character.


Essay #4 – Cohens v. Virginia (1821) – Over the years, the Supreme Court has addressed several constitutional topics in cases involving lotteries. Perhaps none is as significant as Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in Cohens v. Virginia. The case was the third major act in a decades-long contest over the nature of the Union and, more specifically, over the constitutional relationship between federal and state laws and between the federal and state judiciaries.


Essay #5 – Swift v. Tyson (1842) – George Swift filed suit to compel John Tyson to pay a debt due Swift. Tyson refused, defending there was no consideration for the obligation to Swift and that New York common law did not permit assignments of bills of exchange. As New York played a significant role in the financial and commercial market at that time, this issue was of significant importance that the Circuit Court certified it for direct appeal to the United States Supreme Court.


Essay #6 – Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845) – At age 32. after a distinguished government and law firm career in Boston, Joseph Story took his seat on the United States Supreme Court in 1811, becoming the 18th and youngest Justice appointed to the Supreme Court. Story served on the Court for almost thirty-four years, writing a large number of opinions and dissents. Story was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts on September 18, 1779, to Dr. Elisha Story, a participant in the Boston Tea Party, and Elisha’s second wife, Mehitable Pedrick.


Essay #7 – Propeller Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh (1851) – In 1847, on Lake Ontario, the Genesee Chief collided with the schooner Cuba, a sailing vessel laden with nearly 6,000 bushels of wheat. The Cuba sank; the cargo was lost. The owners of the Cuba sought a libel (claim) in admiralty law in federal court for their damages. They based their claim on an 1845 statute of Congress. The Genesee Chief’s owners challenged that court’s jurisdiction. The matter proceeded to the Supreme Court. Viewed from the narrowest perspective, the Court abandoned long-standing English (and more recent American) precedents about application of admiralty law. In addition, the Court carefully trod a narrow path between powers of the general government and reserved powers of the states.


Essay #8 – Ex Parte McCardle (1869) – Ex parte McCardle was forged in the superheated atmosphere of Southern reconstruction after the Civil War. The struggle to shape that reconstruction pitted the “Radical” Republicans (representing the pre-war abolitionist wing) against moderates within the party. When the Supreme Court followed up with decisions that appeared to undercut the overall approach of Congressional reconstruction, several cases were brought that challenged directly the constitutionality of the Military Reconstruction Acts of 1867. Ex parte McCardle was one.

 

CONGRESSIONAL POWERS

 

Essay #9 – McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) – In 1818, James McCulloch was a cashier at the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank of the United States. McCulloch issued a series of bank notes on which the bank did not pay a Maryland state tax. The state treasurer sued to recover the money and won a judgment in Maryland’s highest court. The Supreme Court accepted the case, which would have a profound impact in defining the principle of federalism, the reading of the Necessary and Proper Clause in the Constitution, and the national vision of the Marshall Court.


Essay #10 – Field v. Clark (1892) – Can Congress give away its legislative powers to other branches of government, including administrative agencies? In the case of Field v. Clark, the Supreme Court decisively said “no,” laying down a precedent that stands against much of what our government does today. The McKinley Tariff Act of 1890, which gave rise to this case, gave the President of the United States the power to suspend duty-free status in sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides when he determined that a country producing and importing those items into the United States had imposed “reciprocally unequal or unreasonable” tariffs on American goods. When the President suspended these items’ duty-free status, taxes had to be paid by companies bringing these goods into the country.

 

PRESIDENTIAL POWERS

 

Essay #11 – United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936) – The three branches of the United States government are often questioned with respect to whether their exercise of powers exceeded the limitations imposed upon them by the United States Constitution. In U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936), the issue was the extent of the president’s and executive branch’s power to conduct the foreign affairs of the United States. The decision has been recognized as a very influential one, establishing the president’s supremacy when it comes to foreign affairs.


Essay #12 – Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) – At times during our nation’s history, the executive branch of the United States government has tested the limits of its power by taking actions that are not explicitly granted to the president or executive branch. For example, in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (the “Steel Seizure Case”) (1952), the Supreme Court addressed the issue of executive power during emergencies in the absence of express statutory or Constitutional authority. Immediately after the Secretary of Commerce issued the order seizing the steel mills, the mills sued Secretary Sawyer in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking a declaratory judgment and an injunction. The District Court issued a preliminary injunction, which the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stayed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the executive branch’s powers in an emergency.

 

FEDERALISM AND STATES’ SOVEREIGNTY

 

Essay #13 – Fletcher v. Peck (1810) – The controversy over Yazoo did not end with the Court’s decision in Fletcher v. Peck in 1813. Peck’s victory was hollow in that Georgia had sold its western territories to the United States after the repeal act, with the proviso that up to 5 million acres be used to settle claims arising out of the Yazoo grants. Some of that land went to innocent purchasers under the original grant. More significant from the position of the Yazooists was that, after nearly two decades of failure, their attempts to have the federal government compensate them for their lost investment bore fruit. On March 31, 1814, President James Madison signed a bill that provided $5 million to compensate those original investors who did not want actually to settle on Yazoo lands. The end came largely due to political fatigue with a controversy that had plagued the first four administrations.


Essay #14 – Green v. Biddle (1823) – The easy conveyance of clear title to real property is an essential element of both a stable and prosperous civil society. “Clearing” title by conveying “unappropriated” lands to a central government is one way that fledgling or developing nations spur exploration, settlement, and development of lands. Such was the issue in the 1823 Supreme Court Case, Green v. Biddle, 21 US 1 (1823), wherein the conveyance of certain unappropriated lands from Virginia to the federal government resulted in confusion when much of that land was used to create the state of Kentucky.


Essay #15 – Willson v. Black Bird Creek Marsh Company (1829) – The concept of the “Dormant” Commerce Clause was fleshed out in an 1829 Supreme Court case, Willson v. Black Bird Creek Marsh Co., 27 US 245 (1829).  In that case, the owner of a sloop, Thomas Willson, had been sued by the Black Bird Creek Marsh Company for ramming his ship through a dam that had been built, in accordance with Delaware state law.  Willson argued that the dam, having been placed in a navigable waterway and therein blocking his ability to sail, interfered with interstate commerce, and was thus violative of the Commerce Clause.


Essay #16 – Barron v. Baltimore (1833) – In the early 1830s, the city of Baltimore was developing as a bustling urban center and port. The city diverted the streams around John Barron’s successful wharf and lowered the water level, which negatively impacted his business. He sued the city to recover his financial losses. Barron claimed the city government had taken his property without just compensation. Property rights are an essential natural right and constitutional liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment.


Essay #17 – Craig v. Missouri (1830) – Under the 1821 Missouri law, loan certificates were issued to those who promised to repay the state and were receivable at the treasury of any loan office created under the law. The underlying action was filed against Hiram Craig and others, who had made a promissory note in County of Chariton in exchange for the loan certificates. The defendants did not repay the state, and the state sued for collection. The defendants challenged the state’s ability to issue loan certificates.


Essay #18 – Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky (1837) – The case of Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky was originally argued before the Supreme Court in 1834, and Chief Justice John Marshall was prepared to rule that the actions of the state bank were unconstitutional. In the case of Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky (1837), the Court had to weigh the constitutionality of circulating notes by state-chartered banks. The Court thus had to grapple with larger issues including the principle of federalism due to the competing powers of national and state governments regarding banks.


Essay #19 – Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837) – In 1785, Boston’s population was around 18,000; across the Charles River, Charlestown counted 1,200. Forty years later, Boston’s population had more than tripled, to 60,000; that of Charlestown to 8,000. The need to accommodate the increased travel and commerce between Boston and points inland resulted in protracted litigation before the Supreme Court in the 1830s in the Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge case.


Essay #20 – Cooley v. Board of Wardens (1851) – In Cooley v. Board of Wardens (1851), a Pennsylvania law of 1803 required all vessels engaged in foreign or interstate travel to take on a pilot to navigate the ship to harbor. Any ship’s master who did not do so had to pay half the pilotage fee to the “Society for the Relief of Distressed and Decayed Pilots, their widows and children.” By further legislation, ships engaged in the Pennsylvania coal trade were exempted. Cooley, who operated under a federal license just as Gibbons and Willson had done, failed to pay the fee. When sued, he claimed that the law violated the Commerce Clause.


Essay #21 – Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) – The case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842) illustrates the fragility of the lives of slaves and of free blacks at the time, in tragic events representing the brutality and injustice of slavery. Since the Supreme Court supported the side of slaveholders, free states were crippled in their ability to maintain rule of law as slave catchers grew bolder—and more prosperous. Increasing refusal of abolitionists in the free states to comply with the 1793 law and the ruling in Prigg prompted southern representatives to demand a stricter Fugitive Slave Act in the Compromise of 1850. The compromise soon broke down and within a decade a bloody Civil War was fought over the intractable issues related to slavery.


Essay #22 – Texas v. White (1869) – TEXAS v. WHITE ET AL., 74 U.S. 700 (1869) is one of the most important decisions made by the Supreme Court, because it addresses the nature of the Union. More specifically, is the Union bound together through the consent of the States or the coercive power of the United States government. Texas v. White is controlling case law which denies the constitutional right of a State to secede from the Union. Ipso Facto, should a State or States desire to secede from the Union, to that extent the Union is coercively bound together, and thereby not necessarily deriving its powers from the consent of the governed and anathema to the “consent of the governed” principle of the Declaration of Independence.

 

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

 

Essay #23 – Gelpcke v. City of Dubuque (1863) – On its face, Gelpcke v. Dubuque appears to be about the validity of municipal bonds and not much else, but there were deeper legal issues at play. Namely, who has the ultimate authority to interpret a state constitution or statute, the highest state court or the federal courts (including the Supreme Court)? And when a state supreme court gives a new interpretation to a state statute, does that constitute an amendment of the statute, i.e. does it have the status of “law?” If so, and this has the effect of rendering a contract void, can this then bring the opinion of the state supreme court into conflict with the U.S. Constitution, i.e., the Impairment of Contracts clause?


Essay #24 – Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. (1926) – In Euclid v. Ambler, the Supreme Court upheld the right of the Village of Euclid in Ohio, mostly farmland east of Cleveland, to impose zoning restrictions on property owners. Today, zoning is a near-universal practice. While zoning did not originate with the village of Euclid, the Euclid case was the first federal case, and it became a beacon of attraction for zoning upon reaching the Supreme Court.


Essay #25 – Justice George Sutherland (1862-1942) – In the Supreme Court’s history, six justices were born outside of the United States. The fifth of those born on foreign soil was George Sutherland (second born in England). After a career in private practice and public office, Sutherland became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1923, and would figure prominently in the New Deal jurisprudence as one of the “Four Horsemen” of the Supreme Court.


Essay #26 – San Antonio v. Rodriguez (1973 – Is a free public education a fundamental right? If so, what is the role of the federal government in assuring that the right is guaranteed in a manner that aligns with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause? These questions are at the heart of San Antonio v. Rodriguez, a 1973 Supreme Court case.

 

ELECTIONS AND REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

 

Essay #27 – Baker v. Carr (1962) – In 1962, the Supreme Court embarked on what has been described by one scholar as “the most significant reformist activism in which the Warren Court engaged,” other than civil rights cases involving blacks. The constitutional arena was the apportionment of legislative districts, and the case was Baker v. Carr.

 

PROPERTY RIGHTS

 

Essay #28 – Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago (1897) – In October 1880, the Chicago City Council decided to widen Rockwell Street, requiring the City to acquire certain private property owned by individuals and a right-of-way owned by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. The City of Chicago brought a condemnation suit in state court, and the jury awarded compensation to the individuals but only awarded one dollar to the railroad for its right-of-way. The railroad appealed, asserting that the condemnation was a taking in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

 

COMMERCE AND CONTRACTS

 

Essay #29 – New Jersey v. Wilson (1812) – Are the terms of a contract inviolate? Can a contract run in perpetuity and affect something other than the parties involved? Can contracts be impaired (modified or broken) without the consent of both parties? These were the questions facing the Court in 1812 when they accepted an appeal of New Jersey v. Wilson. Citing Fletcher v. Peck as precedent, the court decided that the original agreement with the Indians represented a valid contract, and contracts, with few exceptions, remain in force unless and until the terms have been met or they are severed by mutual agreement of both parties.


Essay #30 – Trustees Of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) – Daniel Webster, an alumnus of Dartmouth College, was selected by the trustees to argue their position before the Supreme Court of the United States. Webster argued that the New Hampshire legislature had violated the Contract Clause of the Constitution by passing a law “impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” In the decision written by Chief Justice John Marshall, the Court found that the college charter was a contract and that the charter made it clear Dartmouth College was a private entity and not a public one. The Dartmouth College decision was a landmark one because it imposed a significant constitutional limitation on states’ authority to intervene in and change state charters and contracts. 


Essay #31 – United States v. E.C. Knight (1895) – The late nineteenth century was a time of business consolidation as the American economy experienced a “great merger movement” with the rise of big business. Through means foul and fair, corporations formed trusts that dominated entire industries to combat competitive pressures that drove prices and at times to monopolize for control. The sugar industry was a part of this consolidation movement. The Supreme Court decided the first test case of the Sherman Act in United States v. E.C. Knight (1895).  The key question in the case was whether the manufacturing activity could be regulated under the Sherman Act or whether it fell under the police powers and regulatory authority of the states.


Essay #32 – Allgeyer v. Louisiana (1897) – Allgeyer v. Louisiana was the first decision in what would become a 40-year period in which the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a number of state-level economic regulations, such as those affecting working conditions, wages and hours. The Court extended the substantive meaning of the Due Process Clause to protect economic rights, liberty of contract, and commercial activity as part of the definition of liberty. Justice Rufus W. Peckham, author of the Allgeyer decision, explained that the state’s police power was limited to laws protecting the public’s morals, health, safety, and welfare, and a maximum hours law for bakers in New York did not meet that test, because it violated the liberty of contract.


Essay #33 – Champion v. Ames (1903) – The Industrial Revolution created theretofore unimaginable wealth, some of which trickled down as wages to workers in the mills and factories of the 19th century. Though substandard by today’s measure, those wages were sufficiently high and working conditions sufficiently appealing to attract people from farms to the growing cities. It was Champion v. Ames, along with a handful of other cases in the first decade and a half of the 20th century, which validated the claim of constitutional legitimacy for the Progressive program of national direction of economic and social policy.


Essay #34 – Nebbia v. New York (1934) – In the late 1920s, farmers were often unable to sell their crops to distributors for sufficient prices to cover their costs of production. The Great Depression further exacerbated economic chaos and hardship throughout the American economy, making it even more difficult to adjust to the economic collapse. The central question in Nebbia v. New York, 1934, was whether the New York price regulation violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Writing for the majority, Justice Owen Roberts explained that: neither property rights nor contract rights are absolute, [and] the power to promote the general welfare is inherent in government…[A] state is free to adopt whatever economic policy may reasonably be deemed to promote public welfare … Price control, like any form of regulation, is unconstitutional.


Essay #35 – Home Building & Loan v. Blaisdell (1934) – To stem home and farm foreclosures during the Great Depression, Minnesota passed a law which allowed a mortgagor to pay court-determined rent set below the contractual mortgage amount. The mortgage holder could not foreclose as long as the mortgagor paid the reduced rent. The Minnesota law was passed on April 18, 1933, and the Supreme Court (5-4) decided in favor of the law’s constitutionality in January of 1934.


Essay #36 – Gold Clause Cases (1935) – Soon after his first inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to close the gold window. At the time, the American currency was tied to the value of gold, and the financial crisis was putting serious pressure on government gold reserves. To deal with the problem, the government devalued the dollar. As an emergency measure, Congress passed a joint resolution declaring that the federal government would no longer recognize any debts that required “payments in gold or a particular kind of coin or currency, or in an amount of money of the United States measured thereby.” During World War I, however, the U.S. Treasury had issued Liberty Bonds that provided that the “principal and interest hereof are payable in United States gold coin of the present standard of value.” Some of those bonds were now due, and creditors filed suit against the federal government demanding payment in the promised gold coin. The case was of extraordinary economic, political, and legal importance.


Essay #37 – Schechter Poultry Corp v. U.S. (1935) – In Schechter Poultry Corporation v. U.S. (1935), the “Sick Chicken” case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the regulations of the NIRA were unconstitutional. The Court reasoned that the NRA rules, regulations, and codes had unconstitutionally exceeded congressional authority to regulate interstate trade under the Commerce clause by regulating business transactions within a state. Moreover, the Court held that Congress had unconstitutionally delegated its legislative authority to the executive branch.


Essay #38 – Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) – Louis Brandeis was born in Louisville, Kentucky on November 13, 1856, to Adolph and Frederika Brandeis (nee Dembitz), Jewish immigrants from Prague. Until 1916, the United States Supreme Court had never had a Jewish justice. That changed on January 28, 1916, when Louis Brandeis, the “People’s Lawyer,” was nominated to the highest court in the land by President Woodrow Wilson. Brandeis served for almost twenty-three years and authored several significant opinions during his time on the Supreme Court.


Essay #39 – Carter v. Carter Coal (1936) – As part of the New Deal, Congress enacted the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935, also called the Guffey Coal Act. James Walter Carter, president of the Carter Coal and Iron Company, immediately filed suit to stop his company from paying the excise tax and prevent its compliance with the law’s other provisions. He maintained that the Guffey Act was an overreach of Congress’s constitutional powers. The law, Carter argued, violated the Tenth Amendment because its provisions are outside of the specific enumerated powers of Congress and therefore a power reserved to the states. Further, Carter believed the 15% tax violated the Fifth Amendment because it was not actually a tax, but a penalty against any operators who refused to accept the regulations, depriving them of their property without due process.


Essay #40 – National Labor Relations Board v. Jones And Laughlin Steel Company (1937) – In National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Company and two companion cases, the Court upheld a key piece of New Deal legislation, the controversial National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act. Of these cases, the most instrumental in the long run in expanding the power of the general government and threatening the traditional structure of federalism, was Jones-Laughlin. There, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had determined that the company was engaged in “unfair labor practices affecting [interstate] commerce,” in breach of the Wagner Act. The allegation rested on the company having fired ten union organizers, thereby violating the statute’s prohibition of discrimination and coercion based on an employee’s membership in a labor union or participation in labor organizing.


Essay #41 – National League of Cities v. Usery (1976) – A robust Tenth Amendment is absolutely essential to preserving the Constitution’s establishment of a limited federal government. Usery involved a direct clash between federal and state power. The Court’s Usery majority recognized that the power to regulate state employment was effectively the power to destroy the state, which the Constitution simply did not allow.


Essay #42 – Wickard v. Filburn (1942) – In 1938, Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 (the “1938 Act”), which it enacted to address and correct provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 for farm subsidies that the Supreme Court had found unconstitutional. The 1938 Act established marketing quotas and price controls. Roscoe Filburn, a farmer in Ohio, admittedly sowed twelve acres of wheat more than he was permitted under the 1938 Act, but none of it was sold on the open market. Filburn was fined $117.11 for violating the 1938 Act. Filburn sued, challenging the penalty. The main issue before the Supreme Court was whether wheat that Filburn used for personal consumption was subject to the quotas imposed by the 1938 Act and whether local commerce could be regulated by the Federal government under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.


Essay #43 – Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (1985) – In several opinions, the justices began to backtrack from the constitutional federalism of National League of Cities to the “congressional federalism,” as Douglas had called it, of the previous decades. That path culminated in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, a 5-4 decision in 1985. The case revisited the FLSA’s wage and hour provisions, this time to determine a municipal transit system’s status as a traditional government function.

 

LABOR

 

Essay #44 – In re Debs (1895) – Eugene V. Debs was founder of the American Railway Union (ARU). Workers at PPCC were not initially unionized so Debs brought in ARU organizers and signed up many of the disgruntled during depression, (the Panic of 1893). A local strike at the factory was largely ineffective, so Debs took the effort national. Striking workers refused to handle trains carrying Pullman cars; unfortunately for the strikers, some of these trains also carried U.S. mail. The question for the Supreme Court was whether the federal government had general authority to use force to prevent obstructions to interstate railroads and whether the courts could support such efforts through the expedience of injunctions rather than through the more formal processes of a criminal prosecution.


Essay #45 – Justice David J. Brewer (1837-1910) – David J. Brewer was born on June 20, 1837, in Smyrna, Asia Minor (today Turkey), the fourth of six Supreme Court Justices born outside the United States. Brewer was born to Emilia Brewer (nee Field) and Reverend Josiah Brewer, who oversaw a school for Greeks in Smyrna at the time. Brewer sat on the Court with his uncle, Stephen J. Field, to date the only relatives to serve contemporaneously, with Brewer serving twenty years on the Court before his death in 1910.


Essay #46 – Holden v. Hardy (1898) – The New York legislature, citing concerns for health and safety due to unsanitary conditions in bakeries, had enacted a law that limited hours of labor for bakery employees. Justice Rufus Peckham, one of the dissenters in Holden, wrote the majority opinion in Lochner v. New York, overturning the New York law. This time, the majority in the 5-4 decision ruled that the state law in question was an unconstitutional limit on freedom of contract because, in the Court’s judgment, the baking business was not an unhealthy trade. Thus the Court began the Lochner Era, becoming the final authority over all kinds of state regulations for the next thirty-two years.


Essay #47 – Lochner v. New York (1905) – The law in question that Lochner was criminally penalized for violating was the New York Bakeshop Act (1895) that the state legislature passed unanimously. The law primarily prevented employers from either allowing or requiring employees from working more than ten hours in a day or sixty hours in a week. The laws also mandated a variety of other sanitation provisions for bakeshops to protect the health of workers and consumers.


Essay #48 – Adair v. United States (1908) – In 1898, Congress passed the Erdman Act, making it a crime to fire an employee for belonging to a union. Because the Constitution does not expressly give the federal government the power to regulate employment, Congress limited the law to apply only to employees involved in interstate commerce. William Adair threatened to fire O.B. Coppage if he did not leave the union, and then fired him when he refused.  Adair was convicted of violating the Erdman Act and fined $100. He appealed the conviction, and his case was heard by the Supreme Court in the case Adair v. U.S. (1908).


Essay #49 – Coppage v. Kansas (1915) – The Coppage decision was part of the “Lochner Era” in which the Court generally protected property rights and curtailed state and federal economic regulations. The Court allowed the free market to decide, and management often hired employees with anti-union contracts to prevent labor disruptions. During the New Deal, the Court reversed this line of precedent in 1937 and allowed the different levels of government to intervene in the employer-employee relationship to strengthen the interests of organized labor unions and individual workers. During both eras, the Court struggled with defining the boundaries of constitutional regulatory power of the government in private enterprise.


Essay #50 – Justice Mahlon Pitney (1858-1924) – Mahlon Pitney was appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President William H. Taft in 1912, and served there for ten and one-half years until his retirement in December, 1922. Pitney was a systematic classical liberal who took great pains to defend strong property rights and limited government. He thought that competition had a preferred constitutional status relative to monopoly in all areas of economic life. Pitney thus recognized that ordinary contracts for employment would produce gains from trade for both sides, and that the strongest protection for any worker lay in his ability to obtain alternative employment.

 

MONEY AND FINANCE

 

Essay #51 – Sturges v. Crowninshield (1819) And Ogden v. Saunders (1827) – Two landmark cases, Sturges v. Crowninshield, 17 U.S. 122 (1819) and Ogden v. Saunders, 25 U.S. 213 (1827), established the relative power of the federal government and the states with respect to insolvent and bankruptcy laws. Sturges and Ogden together established that the United States’ bankruptcy power is not exclusive. A state may adopt a bankruptcy law so long as any exercise of that power does not conflict with any law of the United States establishing a uniform system of bankruptcy, and the law does not impair any obligation of contracts.


Essay #52 – The Legal Tender Cases (1870) – The legal tender controversy involved Supreme Court decisions that spanned a decade and a half beginning in 1870 with Hepburn v. Griswold 75 U.S. 603 (1870), in which the Legal Tender Act of 1862, 12 Stat. 345, making United States Treasury notes legal tender, was invalidated on constitutional grounds.


Essay #53 – Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan And Trust Co. (1895) – Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust Company, 158 U. S. 601 (1895), arose when a stockholder of the company sued to prevent the company from voluntarily paying a tax on its profits. The tax had been assessed pursuant to an act of Congress that levied a tax of two percent per year on incomes over $4,000.00. The Pollock case should retain more than merely historical interest, in view of the subsequent exponential growth of the national government and the concomitant growth of an arguably overreaching federal taxing authority.

 

DUE PROCESS OF LAW AND DEFENDANTS’ RIGHTS

 

Essay #54 – Ex Parte Vallandigham (1864) And Ex Parte Milligan (1866) – Article 1 Section 9, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution enshrines the “Great Writ,” a protection against arbitrary imprisonment that dates back at least to the Magna Carta of 1215: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” The Supreme Court’s rulings in ex parte Vallandigham and ex parte Milligan set a long-standing pattern regarding wartime cases.


Essay #55 – Chicago, Milwaukee And St. Paul Railroad v. Minnesota (1890) – The Railroad and Warehouse Commission ruled that the Railroad must charge 2.5 cents along all its routes, consistently. When the Railroad refused to do this, the state asked the Minnesota Supreme Court to direct the Railroad to comply with the Commission’s demand, which the Court did. At this point, the Railroad challenged the constitutionality of the Minnesota Court’s ruling, arguing that the regulation violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. In April 1888, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld its ruling in favor of the Commission over the Railroad. When the Minnesota Supreme Court denied the Railroad’s request that the Court reconsider its ruling, the Railroad brought the case to the U. S. Supreme Court in January 1890.


Essay #56 – Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) And Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) – Medieval natural law writers, such as Thomas Aquinas, considered it a duty arising out of the nature of humans to care for their offspring. Presumably, that includes the duty to educate the offspring consistent with their abilities, in order to allow them to achieve the Greek arete, excellence. To perform this natural duty parents have the natural right to control their children’s upbringing within the family. The Supreme Court addressed conflicting positions in two cases, Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925).


Essay #57 – Palko v. Connecticut (1937) – Palko v. Connecticut resulted from the appeal of a capital murder conviction. Palko was charged with killing a police officer during the commission of an armed robbery. Although he was charged with first degree murder, he was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. The state of Connecticut appealed the sentence. The state supreme court ordered a retrial, at the conclusion of which Palko was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. Palko appealed the second conviction and sentence in the state courts but lost, after which he petitioned the United States Supreme Court.

 

CRIMINAL LAW

 

Essay #58 – Furman v. Georgia (1972) – The question the Supreme Court decided was more specific than simply whether the death penalty was constitutional. As four of the justices pointed out, the Constitution specifically includes the death penalty in the 5th Amendment (referred to in the Constitution as a “capital” crime). Rather, the Supreme Court sought to answer the question of whether or not the death penalty had been applied fairly.

 

CIVIL RIGHTS

 

Essay #59 – Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) – The Dred Scott decision is a landmark decision because it answered questions regarding slavery that the Court had not previously addressed. It is also one of the most infamous decisions, furthering the great divide facing the nation regarding the question of slavery and moving the country further down the path toward the Civil War. The Dred Scott decision undermined the prestige of the Supreme Court and legal scholars consider it to be the worst decision ever issued by the Supreme Court. The Dred Scott decision was overturned when the Civil War ended and the Civil War Amendments were ratified.


Essay #60 – Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) (Part 2) – In the 1850s, the United States was deeply divided over the issue of slavery and its expansion into the West. The northern and southern sections of the country had been arguing over the expansion of slavery into the western territories for decades. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had divided the Louisiana Territory at 36’30° with new states north of the line free states and south of the lines slave states. The United States faced this combustible situation when Chief Justice Roger B. Taney sat down in late February 1857, to write the infamous opinion in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford that would go down as a travesty of constitutional interpretation and one of the greatest injustices laid down by the Supreme Court.


Essay #61 – Ex Parte Merryman (1861) – On April 27, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln took one of the most dramatic steps ever taken by an American chief executive, and suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. He did so, under a provision in Article 1, section 9 of the Constitution: The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. Lincoln argued that he was obligated by the presidential oath to see that the laws were faithfully executed. If the only means for doing so was a suspension of the writ and the arrest of Merryman, then he would be culpable for not having taken such a step.


Essay #62 – Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (1777-1864) – Roger B. Taney was born in Calvert County, Maryland, on March 17, 1777. He was born and raised Catholic by his parents, Michael and Monica. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice, served thirty-four-and-a half years in that role. Roger B. Taney, who succeeded Marshall, served for twenty-eight-and-a- half years, including during almost the entirety of the Civil War. (Marshall and Taney are, respectively, the first- and second- longest serving Chief Justices.)


Essay #63 – Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (1777-1864) (Part 2) – Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney was born and raised on a southern Maryland tobacco plantation. He attended Dickinson College and received a classical education before reading law under Jeremiah Chase, one of three judges on the state’s General Court. Justice Taney passed the bar exam and married the sister of his close friend, Francis Scott Key. He entered politics and won a seat in the Maryland House as a Federalist. He supported the War of 1812 and broke with the Federalists over their opposition to the war. Justice Taney adopted Jeffersonian views that would lay the foundation for the rise of the Democratic Party.


Essay #64 – The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) – After the adoption of the 14th Amendment, it was only a matter of time before the Supreme Court would become involved in its interpretation. One of those early cases arose from a challenge to an 1869 Louisiana law that granted a 25-year monopoly to a company to operate slaughterhouses in and around New Orleans. While the historical corruption of Louisiana politics always arouses suspicion when exclusive franchises are awarded, the law was presented as addressing public health issues that arose with large-scale butchering of animals in growing cities. Independent butchers, who had to use this monopoly’s facility to process the livestock they purchased, claimed that the state violated the right to perform their trade, protected under the 13th and 14th Amendments and the 1866 Act.


Essay #65 – Justice Stephen J. Field (1816-1899) – It is an understatement to describe Stephen Johnson Field as a giant among Supreme Court justices. He served more than 34 years on the Court and authored 544 opinions. He was the son of David Dudley Field and Submit Dickinson, both with roots directly traceable to early New England Puritans. Best-known among his eight siblings were David Dudley Field, Jr., a prominent New York attorney who led the movement to codify the common law that became the “Field Codes.”


Essay #66 – Civil Rights Cases (1883) – The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, outlawed slavery throughout the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, defined citizenship and prohibited the states from violating equal protection and due process of law for all persons. During Reconstruction following the Civil War, states of the former Confederate States of America were required to ratify these amendments before readmission to the Union, and as long as Union troops occupied the defeated South, the rights of African Americans were somewhat protected. Once Reconstruction formally drew to a close in 1876, however, freedmen and their descendants lost these constitutional legal protections and were unable to put into effect their rights to life, liberty, and property.


Essay #67 – Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) – In 1890, Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act which required railroads to provide separate accommodations, including separate cars, for blacks and whites. The Plessy decision is a landmark decision that upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine, which would remain the law of the land for almost sixty years until 1954, when the Supreme Court issued its unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Harlan, the lone dissenter in Plessy, was ultimately proved correct.


Essay #68 – Justice John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911) – John Marshall Harlan was born at Harlan’s Station, near Danville, Kentucky, to Elizabeth (nee Davenport) and James Harlan. Justice Harlan served more than thirty-three years on the Supreme Court, the sixth longest term in the Court’s history. During his long tenure, Harlan became known as “The Great Dissenter,” signing more than 300 dissenting opinions from 1877-1911. Harlan’s grandson, John Marshall Harlan II, would later also serve on the Supreme Court.


Essay #69 – The Insular Cases (1901) – In a series of cases called the Insular Cases, the Supreme Court over two decades attempted to hammer out the constitutional ramifications of the United States’ limited foray into colonialism. The Insular Cases removed constitutional challenges to popular political initiatives of overseas expansion ratified by the election of 1900.


Essay #70 – Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1968) – The question before the Court was two-fold. First, does the law asserting that “[a]ll citizens … shall have the same right … [to] purchase… real and personal property” apply to sale by private parties? Second, does Congress have the constitutional power to prohibit all racial discrimination, private and public, in the sale and rental of property? The case was argued before the Supreme Court April 1-2, 1968.


Essay #71 – United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938) – If you concede the constitutionality of the administrative state, where does that leave citizens’ liberties? That is, if you claim (some might say pretend) that the United States Constitution authorizes unelected, tenured officials the power to frame, enforce, and adjudicate laws you grant a privilege that looks very much like the abrogation of the Constitution’s separation of powers, brushing aside Thomas Jefferson’s maxim that the accumulation of these powers in one set of hands is the definition of tyranny. Under these circumstances, how will citizens’ liberties be protected? Who will do it? This is the question addressed in the Carolene Products case.


Essay #72 – United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938) (Part 2) – This case belongs to a string of cases dating from the late nineteenth century involving substitute or imitation dairy products. Carolene Products arose from a controversy over “Milnut,” a beverage made from mixing skimmed milk with another product that is not milk fat (usually vegetable oil, in this case, coconut oil).


Essay #73 – Bolling v. Sharpe (1954) And Brown v. Topeka Board Of Education (1954) And Cooper v. Aaron (1958) – In December 1952, African-American lawyer Thurgood Marshall appeared before the Supreme Court representing a seven-year-old black girl from Topeka, Kansas named Linda Brown who had to ride the bus to her segregated black school instead of walking to the neighborhood school. Marshall and other NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers were there for three days of oral arguments in five consolidated cases dealing with segregated schools. The five cases would eventually be consolidated under Brown v. Board of Education.


Essay #74 – Chief Justice Earl Warren (1891-1974) – Chief Justice Earl Warren was born in Los Angeles, California, to Mathias H. Warren, a Norwegian immigrant, and Crystal (nee Hernlund). Warren graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1912 with a B.A. in political science, and then entered the Berkeley School of Law, where he graduated in 1914. He later served as governor of California. Nine chief justices and nearly 120 years separate John Marshall from Earl Warren. While each chief has influenced the Supreme Court and helped to shape its history, Warren and Marshall are often mentioned together as the greatest of the 17 chiefs.


Essay #75 – Griggs v. Duke Power (1971), California v. Bakke (1978), USWA v. Weber (1979), Fullilove v. Klutznick (1980) – Into the twenty-first century, the Supreme Court continues to adjudicate the highly controversial questions related to affirmative action. The Supreme Court has tried to thread a fine line between those opposing beliefs. Supreme Court decisions that followed the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movement furthered discussions on improving civil rights. Related cases in this essay focus on these issues: Griggs v. Duke Power (1971), California v. Bakke (1978), USWA v. Weber (1979), Fullilove v. Klutznick (1980).


Essay #76 – Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989) – The decision in Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989) banned a state affirmative action program that chipped away at affirmative action but did not rule the idea unconstitutional. It contributed to muddying the controversial issue even more. The disputes among the justices were representative of the continuing popular contention over the issue.

 

FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS

Establishment Clause:

 

Essay #77 – Abrams v. United States (1919) – “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ….” Though there is some debate over its original meaning, the First Amendment is commonly thought to have prohibited administrative prior restraint on public speaking or writing. During the war, the defendants in Abrams had distributed circulars (some by throwing them out a window) that were alleged, among other similar counts, to violate the amended Espionage Act by containing “disloyal, scurrilous and abusive language about the form of government of the United States.” Abrams v. United States involved prosecution for anti-war leaflets in violation of the Sedition Act of 1918, which was a series of amendments to the Espionage Act.


Essay #78 – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) – Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., after serving as a Massachusetts Supreme Court judge for twenty years, was nominated to a vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States and served for almost thirty years on the highest court in the nation, retiring at age 90. Justice Holmes took his seat on the United States Supreme Court in 1902, at the age of 61, becoming the 58th Justice of the Supreme Court, and one of the most quoted justices in the Supreme Court’s history as well as one of the best known of the justices.


Essay #79 – Engel v. Vitale (1962) And Everson v. Ewing (1962) – In Engel v. Vitale (370 U.S. 421 [1962]), the Supreme Court took up the question of school prayer and rejected as unconstitutional the New York state practice of beginning each school day with the recitation of the Regent’s Prayer. It was the first of a series of decisions regarding public prayer. While the Court’s doctrine has developed over time—above all, in explicitly distinguishing prayer in schools from prayer in other public settings—many of the issues and many of the problems in its jurisprudence were already evident in this first case.


Essay #80 – Engel v. Vitale (1962) And Everson v. Ewing (1962) (Part 2) – “Almighty God, we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country:” Engel v. Vitale (1962). In the Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township (1947), the Supreme Court decided that it was constitutional for the state of New Jersey to reimburse parents for the cost of bus transportation, even to a parochial school. In rendering the decision, the Court attempted to use evidence from the nation’s founding to prove that there was a “wall of separation between church and state.” The Engel v. Vitale (1962) decision had a fundamental impact shaping how the Court interpreted schools and prayer under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The issue continues to be part of America’s culture war over values.

 

Freedom of Speech:

 

Essay #81 – Gitlow v. New York (1925) And Bradenburg v. Ohio (1969) –  The late 19th and early 20th Centuries saw the passage of a number of state and federal laws allowing prosecutions for political speech that advocated or implied violence against government. In 1917 and 1918, for example, Congress passed the Espionage Act, the first major federal law against seditious speech since the Sedition Act of 1798. The Supreme Court backed away from the “clear and present danger” test in deciding the case of Gitlow v. New York (1925). Starting in the 1950s, the Supreme Court began to shift toward Justice Holmes’ “clear and present danger” test through a series of cases involving the communication of communist ideas. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court started to move toward a broader view of the “clear and present danger” test, culminating in the 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio.


Essay #82 – Gitlow v. New York (1925) And Bradenburg v. Ohio (1969) (Part 2) – Benjamin Gitlow and Clarence Brandenburg would seem to have had little in common, but each was responsible for bringing a case that resulted in an important revolution in interpreting the meaning of free speech. The Court overturned the syndicalism statute and crafted a new test to be employed in free speech cases. They ruled that “Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”


Essay #83 – Chief Justice William Howard Taft (1857-1930) – William Howard Taft was born on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alphonso Taft, a lawyer and judge who had served in President Ulysses S. Grant’s cabinet as Attorney General, and Louise (nee Torrey). When Chief Justice Edward White died in May 1910, President Warren G. Harding immediately turned to former President William Howard Taft, who had appointed White to the Supreme Court, to succeed White. Taft served on the Supreme Court for just less than ten years until his resignation on February 3, 1930.


Essay #84 – Dennis v. United States (1951) – In Dennis v. United States, the Supreme Court explained, “Whatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a “right” to rebellion against dictatorial governments [that argument] is without force where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and orderly change.” In other words, while the people retain the right to freely elect their representatives, and there is an orderly process in place to change the government, the people do not possess a right to simply cast the Constitution aside.


Essay #85 – Justice Hugo Black (1886-1971) – Hugo Black served more than thirty-four years on the Supreme Court, the fifth longest tenure in the Court’s history. During his time on the Court, Black developed a reputation as a justice who strongly believed the United States Constitution was to be given its plain and original meaning. Black was born on February 27, 1886, in Ashland, a small town in Clay County, Alabama, to Marsha (nee Toland) and William Lafayette Black. Black’s family were farmers. Originally following in his brother’s footsteps, Black attended Birmingham Medical School, but left that school to attend the University of Alabama Law School, where he graduated in 1906 at the age of 20.

 

Freedom of the Press:

 

Essay #86 – New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) – The Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision written by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., deciding in favor of the newspaper. Brennan wrote, “[W]e consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” An important question was whether the statements that Sullivan believed attacked him had lost First Amendment protection because they were false and allegedly defamatory.


Essay #87 – Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. (1906-1997) – On July 20, 1990, Associate Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. resigned from the Supreme Court of the United States, after serving nearly 34 years (including three months with a recess appointment and two months while his nomination was confirmed). Only five justices served longer on the Supreme Court and only one justice wrote more opinions. Brennan was an election year appointment by President Dwight Eisenhower.

 

PERSONAL CONDUCT AND PRIVACY

 

Essay #88 – Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) – In June, 1961, the Supreme Court declined to rule on the constitutionality of an 1879 Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptive devices for the purpose of preventing pregnancy, as well as the counseling of such use. The law applied to married and unmarried couples. Justice Harlan emphasized in (the related case) Poe v. Ullman (1961), not only may a state through its laws seek to promote the moral soundness of its people, but every society in civilized times has done so. The issue was debated again in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965).


Essay #89 – Roe v. Wade (1973) And Planned Parenthood Of Southeastern PA v. Casey (1992) – The issue of abortion was highly contentious in American society before Roe v. Wade. The case started when “Jane Roe” (later identified as Norma McCorvey) had an abortion. She challenged a restrictive Texas abortion law and the case eventually made it to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court legalized abortion in the United States according to the trimester framework, but it did not quell the fierce contention in American society. Roe v. Wade raised many troubling questions for the Supreme Court. It became a central issue and litmus test in the growing culture wars.


Essay #90 – Lawrence v. Texas (2003), United States v. Windsor (2013) And Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) – In 1996, the United States Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) which provided in its Section 3 that a federally-defined marriage was between one man and one woman. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges related to the definition of marriage.


Essay #91 – Justice Antonin Scalia (1936-2016) – During the Senate hearings on his nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch commented, “Justice [Antonin] Scalia’s legacy will live on a lot longer than mine.” Whether or not this is a prophetic remark is too early to tell. However, Judge Gorsuch’s statement recognizes the enormous impact that Scalia has had–and will have–on American constitutional law. He graduated from Georgetown University and Harvard Law School, in both cases at or near the top of his class. After jobs in a law firm, as a law professor at the Universities of Virginia and Chicago, and in the federal government, he was appointed to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Ronald Reagan appointed Scalia to the highest court in 1986.

 

FOREIGN POLICY AND TREATY LAW

 

Essay #92 – Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) And Worcester v. Georgia (1832) – In 1827, the state of Georgia passed several acts that affected the Cherokee Nation within Georgia’s borders. Traditionally and legally, the Cherokee had their own criminal jurisdiction. The Georgia legislature also declared the Cherokees had no legal title to the land that the state would respect. All contracts made between Georgia and the Indians were voided. The Cherokee however, chose the path to the Supreme Court, where they declared to be “the Cherokee nation of Indians, a foreign state, not owing allegiance to the United States, nor to any state of this Union, nor any prince, potentate or state, other than their own.”

 

MODERN SUPREME COURT CASES

 

Essay #93 – Gonzales v. Carhart (2007) – Gonzales v. Carhart is one of those rare cases that highlights the difference an election can make to Supreme Court decision-making. While the Justices of the Supreme Court are (arguably) largely immune from political pressure because they serve for life, they are nominated by Presidents and confirmed by Senates that answer to the People. For this reason, the makeup of the Court is unavoidably a product of the political process, and this process can yield strikingly different results depending on the makeup of the bench. Gonzales presented to the Supreme Court for a second time the question of the constitutionality of statutory prohibitions on “partial-birth abortion.”


Essay #94 – District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) – District of Columbia v. Heller provided clarity to a long and quarrelsome debate about the application of the Second Amendment. The crux of the case was whether the right to “keep and bear arms” was an individual right or a collective right associated with regulated militias. The Supreme Court (5-4) ruled the Second Amendment an individual right. Specifically, the case challenged overly restrictive gun laws of the District of Columbia.


Essay #95 – District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) (Part 2) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case considered whether the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to possess and use privately-owned firearms. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The Founding Fathers drafted and ratified the Second Amendment in order to protect the individual right of citizens to possess and carry their personal arms—most notably but not exclusively firearms. The Founders did not believe that they were creating a new right in the Second Amendment; rather, they insisted that they were simply preserving a right that predated the birth of the American Republic.


Essay #96 – McDonald v. Chicago (2010) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 McDonald v. Chicago case considered whether the Second Amendment’s protection of the individual right to possess and use privately-owned firearms as affirmed in the Court’s 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision also applies to state and local governments.


Essay #97 – Bush v. Gore (2000) And Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board (2000) – The 2000 presidential election came down to who won Florida. Twenty-seven days after the election, the presidency remained undecided. Surrogates for George W. Bush and Al Gore clashed in a close-quarters fight that seemed to have no end. Two interrelated Supreme Court cases finally resolved the highly contentious 2000 election. The ruling on December 4 was a punt, and the 7-2 Equal Protection Clause violation has been nearly forgotten. Post-election writings about the issue emphasize the 5-4 Court decision to call a halt to the recounts.


Essay #98 – Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008) – In 2005, the State of Indiana passed a state law requiring that most Indiana voters who voted on Election Day would have to show government-issued photo ID before voting. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. The case was named for Indiana State Representative William Crawford, the lead Democrat legislator who challenged the law, and election officials in Marion County, Indiana (named after Revolutionary War Hero Francis Marion, “The Swamp Fox”). The case dealt with whether or not the 14th Amendment to the Constitution protects a right to vote without showing photo identification.


Essay #99 – Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) – The case reflected the Court’s traditional constitutional jurisprudence about campaign financing and freedom of speech that distinguished between contributions and expenditures. Federal law initially only prohibited direct contributions to candidates by corporations. In 1947, for the first time, Congress prohibited independent political expenditures from corporations and unions on behalf of candidates. Although the Court would not squarely reach the constitutionality of such restrictions for three decades, questions were raised about their constitutionality.


Essay #100 – Justice Anthony Kennedy (Born 1936) – Anthony Kennedy was born in California in 1936, and attended Stanford University and the London School of Economics before graduating from Harvard Law School. He practiced law and served as a law professor because being appointed to the bench—for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals—in 1975 by President Gerald Ford. In 1987, Justice Lewis Powell retired from the Supreme Court. Justice Kennedy was then nominated and confirmed under President Reagan.


Essay #101 – Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church And School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012) – The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” In Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012), the constitutional question was the extent to which the “ministerial exception” applies in a dispute between an elementary school operated by a church and a teacher in that school.


Essay #102 – Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church And School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012) (Part 2) – In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012), the federal government tried to force a church, against its will, to hire a minister to teach in the church’s school. The US Supreme Court held that the federal government could not force the church to do so. Churches are free to shape their faith and mission under the Free Exercise clause by selecting their own ministers and religious teachers. The First Amendment protects religious liberty: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The first clause is known as the Establishment Clause. The second clause is known as the Free Exercise Clause.

 

CONCLUSION

 

Essay #103 – How The Supreme Court Constitutes America – This series of studies has shown how the Supreme Court has expounded and defined U. S. Constitutional law since 1789…contributing instead to the transformation of the original American regime into a new regime, more centralized and bureaucratic, designed for some purposes that diverge from those of the Framers. The Framers’ regime was a republic, distinguished from tyranny and from the absolute rule they called “despotism” first of all by its respect for and protection of the unalienable or natural rights which governments are duty-bound to secure.

This is the link between Constitutional law and the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. The Framers’ republicanism was first and foremost a natural-rights republicanism, as seen in the Constitution’s preamble. Separated and balanced powers ensure that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches remain distinct but interdependent because they all wield, in Madison’s words, “the means of keeping each other in their proper places.” As late as 1892, the Supreme Court ruled in Field v. Clark that Congress may not give away its legislative power to the other branches.

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