The pivotal Supreme Court cases described in this book remind us that our constitutional system places change and continuity in constant tension. And that is just what the framers of the Constitution intended.

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.

The Presidential election of 2000 was a cliffhanger that was ultimately decided by a few hundred contested ballots in Florida. In order to win, either Vice President Al Gore, a Democrat, or Texas governor George W. Bush, a Republican and the son of former President George H. W. Bush, had to secure at least 270 electoral votes.

On August 8, 1974, Richard M. Nixon announced that the following day he would resign as President of the United States, becoming the first chief executive to do so. Nixon acted in order to avoid impeachment and, in his words, to begin “that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.”

Abortion has roiled the waters of modern American life as few other issues have. Beneath this debate are simmering differences over basic values: the rights of the unborn and the related matter of when life begins, the rights of women to control their reproductive functions and preserve their health, the expectation that women’s most important role is to bear children, and the role of the state in selecting among these values.

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.

The Great Depression that followed the Wall Street panic of November 1929 was an economic scourge of mammoth proportions. Its effects lingered for a decade and spread around the world. Unemployment soared to almost one-quarter of the American labor force in 1933, a twentieth century high.

Lochner v. New York (1905) and Muller v. Oregon (1908) addressed the important question of how far state governments could go in regulating the impact of the late-nineteenth-century industrial revolution on labor and women. Writing in 1787, the framers of the Constitution reserved to the states broad powers to deal with matters of health, safety, morals, and welfare.

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.

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.