HIST 202: The American Constitution: From Constitutional Convention to the Present

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Class Program

History

Credits

Weekly Contact Hours

Course ID

235401

Meets Degree Requirements For

Diversity,

Social Science

Description

This course explores the development, evolving understanding, and historical impact of the American Constitution on our society. It examines the intersectionality of American institutions in implementing, interpreting, and defining the Constitution. Critically emphasizes how historically marginalized groups fought to have their rights recognized and protected under the Constitution.

Course Learning Outcomes

Develop and defend historical positions based upon primary or secondary research.

Identify key people, events and ideas relating to the history of the United States Constitution.

Discuss ideas and principles contained in the foundational documents of the United States and explain how they influence the social and political system.

Explain the origin, purpose, organization, and function of the United State Constitution and how it excluded people based on race and gender.

Analyze the ways the constitution established, preserved, and neglected individual rights throughout the history of the United States.

Explain how the United State Constitution established a system of government with powers, responsibilities, specific effects on society, and limits that have changed over time and that are still contested.

Interpret how historically marginalized people used and challenged state and national laws to address a variety of public issues.

Evaluate major historical and current public policy debates and differentiate arguments and positions. Emphasis will be placed on race, gender, and socioeconomics.

Identify the ways in which racism was institutionalized into the legislative, economic, and societal functions of the United States

Core Topics

Colonial Governments
1. Ancient & Medieval Constitutionalism
2. English Common Law and Parliamentary Practice
  1. Property
    1. Women as property
    2. Enslaved
  2. Religion
    1. Rationalize exclusion of certain people
    2. Constructing identity among Christian terms (WASP)
3. Colonial influences on American constitutionalism
Enlightenment
1. Constructing rights/notion of freedom
2. Natural laws and how it is used to rationalize inequalities
Constitutionalism and the American Revolution
1. Emerging American Constitutionalism (1760-1776)
2. State Constitutions
3. Articles of Confederation
Constitutional Convention
1. Major debates
  1. Virginia & New Jersey Plans
  2. Problem with Representation
    1. 3/5 Compromise
    2. Native Americans/ American Indians
  3. Powers of Legislative, Executive, & Judicial
  4. Separation of Powers/Checks and Balance
2. Federalism
3. The Individual and the Constitution
  1. Who was the Constitution for?
  2. Constructing American Identity and Citizenship
4. Ratification of the Constitution
  1. Federalists & anti-federalists
    1. Federalist No. 10, 51, 70, 78 & Brutus No. 1
Emergence of Two-party system (1790s-1820)
Governing immigration stature
1. Alien and Sedition Act
2. Legal attempt to define whiteness
3. Gender
Expanding national powers under Constitution
1. Supremacy v. state’s rights
2. Strict or loose interpretation of constitution
3. McCulloch v. Maryland
Popular Democracy
1. Election of 1824
2. Jacksonian democracy
  1. Further exclusion
3. Political Parties and Patronage
4. Party loyalty
5. Constitutional debates on session
6. Constitutional debates on removal of tribes
Antebellum, Civil War, & Reconstruction (1850s – 1890s)
1. Dred Scott
2. Reconstruction Amendments
  1. Legacy of Dred Scott on 14th amendment
  2. Exclusion of women 15th amendment
3. Legally disenfranchised people
  1. Poll taxes, literacy tests, covenants
4. Black codes to Jim Crow
  1. KKK & political terror
  2. Slaughter-House 1873
  3. United States v. Cruikshank, 1876
  4. Plessy v. Ferguson (separate and unequal), 1896
The West
1. Reservation laws and challenges
  1. Standing Bear Decision, 1879
  2. Ex Parte Crow Dog, 1883
  3. Major Crimes Act 1885
  4. Kagama v. US, 1886
  5. Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 1903
2. Immigration/Whiteness Legal definition of whiteness (definition of privilege)
  1. Page Act, 1875
  2. Chinese Exclusion Act
  3. Wong Kim Ark, 1898
  4. In re Rodriguez 1897
Progressive Era
1. Reforming government
  1. 16, 17, 18, 19 amendments
2. Muller v. Oregon, 1908
3. WWI policies and constitutional challenges
  1. Espionage Act of 1917
  2. Sedition Act of 1918
  3. Schenck v. United States (violation of free speech)
  4. Immigration laws 1917, 1924
  5. American Indian citizenship
New Deal & WWII
1. Whiteness in the welfare state
  1. Race and gender
2. Indian New Deal
3. Japanese Internment
4. GI Bill
Civil Rights & Civil Liberties (1950s-1990s)
1. Warren Court
  1. Mendez v. Westminster (1947)
  2. Brown v. Board of Education
  3. Baker v. Carr (1961)
  4. Engel v. Vitale (1962)
  5. Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
  6. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
  7. Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
  8. Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)
2. Changing role of the courts in American life
  1. New York Times Company v. United States (1971)
  2. Equal Rights Amendment (1972)
  3. Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972)
  4. Roe v. Wade (1973)
  5. Shaw v. Reno (1993)
  6. Proposition 187 (1994)
    1. Birth right citizenship
  7. United States v. Lopez (1995)
  8. Bush v. Gore (2000)
Cold War
1. Article II
  1. President authority over army & navy challenges Article I declare war in Congress
  2. Conflicts fought without declaration of war
  3. Presidential military power
2. Foreign Policy
  1. Guatemala
  2. Iran
3. Military
4. War Powers Act
Post 9/11 to Present
1. LGBTQ
  1. Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
  2. United States v. Windsor (2013)
  3. Stonewall to Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)
2. SCOTUS Precedent
  1. Obamacare
  2. Cultural issues
    1. Roe v. Wade
    2. Voting Rights
    3. Flag burning as symbolic speech
    4. Second amendment protects right to own guns
    5. Deny unemployment to people who are fired for using illegal drugs
    6. Prayer in school violates first amendment
3. Citizens United (2010)
  1. “Corporations are people too”
  2. Repeal McCain Feingold Act (2001)
4. Voting Rights
  1. Shelby county v. Holder (2013)
5. Arizona law SB 1070
  1. Show me your paper laws
  2. Illegal to teach ChicanX studies in K12
6. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014)
  1. Contraceptive
7. Impeachment
  1. Vague rules around impeachment in constitution