This annotated list provides citations and brief descriptions of important Supreme Court decisions, presented in an A–Z format. Most of the cases are related in some way to the topics and cases treated in the chapters of this book. In addition, this list includes every case—except those already emphasized in the chapters— mentioned in the social studies standards of the state departments of education throughout the United States.
Delegates to the Constitutional Convention- Connecticut: Oliver Ellsworth (1745–1807) was born in Windsor, Connecticut. He attended Yale, graduated from the College of New Jersey (which later became Princeton), and studied law. He served in the Connecticut General Assembly, and the Continental Congress.
Does the U.S. Constitution protect an individual’s right to privacy? Many Americans think it does. Others say it does not. The word “privacy” cannot be found in the U.S. Constitution.
In 1857 the Supreme Court refused to grant Dred Scott’s petition for freedom from slavery. In the 1830s, Dred Scott had moved from St. Louis with his owner, Dr. Emerson, to the free state of Illinois. After Emerson’s death, Scott returned to St. Louis with the doctor’s widow.
During the early years of the nineteenth century, many Americans were primarily loyal to their state rather than to the United States of America. Luther Martin of Maryland, for example, often spoke of Maryland as “my country.”
Like many Supreme Court cases, the great case of Marbury v. Madison began simply. William Marbury and three other people did not receive appointments as justices of the peace for the District of Columbia. Their claim before the Court was the result of a general effort by the outgoing administration of President John Adams to place its Federalist supporters in newly created judicial positions.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of individuals to freedom of speech and the press by restricting the powers of the federal government.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech.” It expresses an absolute prohibition of legislation that would deny this freedom. Constitutional protection of this fundamental civil liberty, however, has not been absolute.
Separation of powers among three branches of government is a central principle in the U.S. Constitution. According to Articles 1, 2, and 3, the Congress makes laws, the President as chief executive enforces them, and the federal judges interpret them in specific cases.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1793 that two South Carolina men could sue and collect debts from the state of Georgia, states’-rights advocates in Congress proposed what became the Eleventh Amendment. This amendment specifically prohibits federal courts from hearing cases in which a state is sued by individuals from another state or country.
Initially, the legislatures of each state elected their U.S. senators. In a number of instances, disagreements between the two houses of a state legislature left Senate seats vacant for protracted periods.
This page provides a list of historic sites and museums related to the Constitution, as well as what resources visitors will find at each location.
In Article I, sections 2 and 9 the U.S. Constitution said that no direct taxes could be imposed unless made in proportion to the population, as measured by the census. This meant that rather than taxing individuals directly, Congress had to levy taxes in each state based on the state’s population.
The Ninth Amendment offers a constitutional safety net, intended to make it clear that Americans have other fundamental rights beyond those listed in the Bill of Rights.
A constitution is the basic law and general plan of government or a people within a country. The purposes, powers, and limitations of government are prescribed in the constitution. It thus sets forth the way people are governed or ruled.
This government site focuses on court literacy, featuring free, downloadable in-depth resources to help students understand how the courts work, key amendments to the Constitution, federal court basics and fast facts, legal concepts, legal landmarks and Supreme Court cases. Classrooms to Courtrooms provides real-life teen-related scenarios to stage in-class or in-court simulations of trials with accompanying scripts.
A dispute between two New York steamboat owners, Thomas Gibbons and Aaron Ogden, raised questions about the powers of Congress to regulate commercial activity within the states and among the different states of the union. Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court was called upon in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) to settle for the first time a controversy about the meaning of the commerce clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Although it was created primarily to deal with the civil rights issues that followed the abolition of slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment has affected a broad range of American life, from business regulation to civil liberties to the rights of criminal defendants.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ” Americans have always agreed that this “establishment clause” prohibits the government from establishing or promoting a national religion. However, since the earliest years of the republic, Americans have disagreed about whether the establishment clause bans all government involvement with religion.
Supreme Court Decisions that Shaped the Constitution- Judicial Review: Marbury v. Madison (1803). On the last night of his Presidency, John Adams appointed a number of Federalists to office, just before Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans assumed power.
A Nation at war with a formidable enemy is a nation at risk. National security becomes a paramount concern of the government, which may, under certain conditions, decide to subordinate the constitutional rights of some individuals to the collective safety of the people.
The Seventh and Eighth Amendments add to the Constitution’s protections for individuals in the judicial system.
On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy waited at the Press Street railroad depot in New Orleans. He had a first-class ticket for a thirty-mile trip to Covington, Louisiana. The train arrived on time at 4:15 in the afternoon, and the nicely dressed, well-groomed young man entered the first-class carriage, took a seat, gave his ticket to the conductor, and boldly spoke words that led to his arrest and trial in a court of law.
The Constitution establishes that the President of the United States has the power to run the executive branch of the government. This section, later modified by the Twelfth Amendment, establishes the Electoral College (the process by which the President and Vice President are elected).
Rooted in English common law, the Fifth Amendment seeks to provide fair methods for trying people accused of committing a crime. To avoid giving government unchecked powers, grand jurors are selected from the general population, and their work, conducted in secret, is not hampered by rigid rules about the type of evidence that can be heard.