Civics Flashcards
(112 cards)
1
Q
Magna Carta
A
- Rights of the Barons versus the Monarch. In the 1590’s it was mythically revived as the primordial rights of Englishmen prior to Kings. It restricted the ability of the King to tax without consent of the royal council. This royal council became parliament. Parliament came to be seen as the will of the people and it had authority over common law, which was judge made law, sort of like SCOTUS cases being used as precedents as if they were law. How was a similar case ruled upon before? That is common law. And it said that it is illegal to critisize the government because, who was the government? The people. England itself. That is not the U.S. way. In the U.S. the people represent their will not through the operations of government, but through a written constitution (similar to the Calvinist belief that authority comes not from leaders but from the Bible itself).
2
Q
Petition of Right
Early Colonial Democracy
A
- Reaction to Charle’s I actions to deprive any individual of property and freedom without need to justify it. He was taking money from ritch people. So rich lords and commons alike combined to force him to sign petition. Charles also forced citizens to feed soldiers, to the petition was similar to the 3rd Amendment.
- Though the Plymouth Pilgrims had the Mayflower Compact of 1620 they signed on the boat with “strangers” (non-separatists) which required government by civil consent and compromise rather than divine decree as the Pilgrims would have liked it, the later Massachusetts bay colony was anti-democratic. For these puritans, inequality was an expression of God’s will. God had separate lists of rights for women, children and servants. Absolutely no religious freedom. To vote you not only had to be a church member, you had to be a “visible saint” meaning that through your material prosperity, God had demonstrated to everyone that you were elect. Since Puritans had many children and also many new colonists came, the vast majority of eligible voters in later years would be of this persuasion, which was collectivist and republican in that it believed only those with “virtue” could rule with the good of the group in mind. Everyone else, including women and free people of color, would be tainted by their own individual special interests. The southern colonies, on the other hand, were individualists and sought only their own welfare.
1638: The Fundamental Order of Connecticut united 3 towns under a single government. This idea of confederation.
1643: The New England Confederation formed between Plymouth, Massachusets Bay, New Haven, and Connecticut. 8 commissioners, 2 chosen by the governmental councils of each colony. Raised funds for Harvard, established missions to the Indians, arbitrated tariffs and other trade disputes, made treaties, raised armies against the Natives (King Philips War).
3
Q
Economic Snapshot of colonies
Habeus Corpus act
A
- New York is taken over by the English. Many colonies began as joint stock companies to increase the wealth of shareholders, not the crown directly. The Northern colonies were farmers. Small farm = freedom. Freedom = disposes Indians. 2nd and 3rd sons don’t inherit land, so increasingly inhabit cities and become merchants of textiles and metal work.
Southern colonies especially had an elite ruling class, such as Washington’s grandfather, hereditary aristocracy but huge poor white working class. Still better to be indentured in America than a poor surf in English with no chance of ever getting your own small farm= freedom. - Court must examine the lawfulness of a prisoners’ detention. It prevents unlawful or arbitrary imprisonment.
4
Q
Bill of Rights (English)
A
- Decide who is next to inherit crown. Limits monarch. Gives some powers to parliament such as free speech. Prohibits cruel and unusual, just like U.S. 8th. Right of protestants (who just kicked out the Catholic king James II) to bear arms in their defense. No right of taxation for the king without parliament’s agreement.
5
Q
Locke’s Treatises
A
- Consent of governed. Social contract. Natural rights. Fail to protect= overthrow.
6
Q
Voltaire’s Letters on the English
A
- Separation of church and state.
7
Q
Rousseau’s Social Contract
A
- Laws belong to citizenry and leaders beholden to them. No divine right.
8
Q
First Continental Congress
A
- Republicanism: only property owning citizens posses virtue: the ability to make decision for the good of the whole groups without being biased by special interests. Liberalism: Citizens give up some liberty in exchange for the government promise to protect their natural rights: life liberty property. Property if not used properly through intense occupation (aboriginal title) it is up for grabs in the doctrine of Christian discovery. Tension between Lockean rights and British-derived rights. The revolutionary idea that we have rights not on the list that Britain assigns us. No taxation without rep was not only in reference to B, but in reference to common man wanting rep in an elite colonial govt.
9
Q
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations
Declaration of Independence
A
1776
- Limited government: freedom from interference from government
Natural rights: life liberty and property and happiness.
Popular sovereignty: government is from the people
Republicanism: government needs to be controlled by the people. People select representatives to administer the government on their behalf.
Social contract: give up some liberties in exchange for protection. Government stays out of my way unless I an my fellow citizens have freely delegated a power to the government and said, government take care of this for me (secure my property rights).
10
Q
Articles of Confederation
A
- Unicameral congress only. No tax collection. 9/13 for decisions. 13/13 for additional articles. No army. Confusion of Article 9 that only the Congress has propriety over Indians except when the states want it.
11
Q
Constitutional convention
A
- Virginia Plan combined with NJ plan. Article I: Congress. Article 2: Executive. Article 3: Judiciary. L can make laws but E can veto. L can override veto and unfund both E and J. J cannot yet nullify laws. Concessions to slave states: slave trade will still be viable for G and Carolinas. Congress unable to decide if it wants to outlaw until 1808. To avoid tyranny of Govt: Separation of Powers and Federalism. To avoid tyranny of rabble: Senators elected by state legislators. Electoral college- also a concession to slavery because a most voters lived in the North even though most people lived in the South. A popular vote would be antislavery because Black people couldn’t vote (even free POC). Commerce clause gives congress authority over interstate and foreign commerce and dealings with Native Americans. Guarantee Clause: Fed troops will protect states from invasion. Necessary and proper clause: Congress can make laws necessary and proper to the carrying out anything the constitution says.
12
Q
Constitution Ratified
A
- Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote Federalist Papers: Strange new powers to the central govt: power to tax, to control interstate commerce. We just fought a revolution in order to get rid of an outside government that wanted to control the states. Federalism: things that the states can do that the feds cannot control. Some powers are shared, some are only federal and some are only states. As opposed to Unitary government where the states only have the powers that the national government gives them, like local branches of a main company. Republicanism= a government that is accountable to the people, that truly has the good of the (white male landowning) people in mind, not only the self interest of the representative and the interest groups to which that representative belongs (which is why women and POC could not be representatives). Anti-federalists (Brutus) believe that the Constitution created a govt that is neither federal nor republican. Federalists (Publius) thought it was both federal and republican because even though it grants new powers to central government, there were checks and balances against those powers. Not a threat to the rights of the states (federalism) or to the liberties of the people (republicanism).
Fed 45: Madison: Central govt has few powers. States have many in the constitution. Fed 10, 51: Madison believes in what he is writing that constitution created a good balance between central govt and states. Gave central enough power to protect the union from its eminent destruction by Native Americans, but still protected the states.
Hamilton: Wanted a unitary national government, and was planning on using the constitution later, once people bought into it, to get the pesky states out of the way and the let the rabble have less of a say. His tactic was we just need people to ratify this so lets say whatever is necessary, promise GA that we won’t use federal troops to protect Creek against white squatters (even though that is what we promised the Creek) and promise the bill of rights, but as soon as its signed, we’ll overawe the Natives with our army and overpower the states with our power. Fed 70: Executive is good. Fed 78: judiciary is least dangerous branch according to him. But antifederalists think that it is the most dangerous, the least accountable to the people because they aren’t elected and once they’re on, they’re on forever. Hamilton argues nothing new because in NY you already have a similar court. Why give them so much power? They don’t have much power in fact because they don’t have any way to check the other branches (and they didn’t at the time, no review). 84: we don’t need a bill of rights.
13
Q
Constitution in Effect and GW Executive. And Judiciary Review Act.
A
- SCOTUS can enforce court appointments. This aspect is the first thing SCOTUS rules unconstitutional later on in 1803.
14
Q
Naturalization act of 1790
Jefferson agrees to Hamilton’s 5 point plan
A
- restricts citizenship to free white people of good character. In response to 3 Chinese men who want citizenship.
- Hamilton’s plan is 1. establish the nation’s credit worthiness by paying off war debt for all states. 2. Establish a national debt with interest bearing bonds giving the rich a stake in the nation’s success. 3. Create a bank of the U.S. that is private and will turn a profit for shareholders, but that will hold public funds and issue currency. 4. Whiskey tax to get money for points 1-3. This hurt small farmers whose most profitable use of grain was whisky. 5. Encourage domestic industrial manufacture through a tariff of foreign goods. This artificially makes those more expensive making local products more competitive.
15
Q
Bill of Rights (U.S)
A
- Religion, speech, press, assembly, petition. 2. Arms, originally for militias to arm against Fed troops. 3. No forced quartering of soldiers (interpreted later as privacy). 4. Search warrants (also privacy). 5. Grand jury, eminent domain, congress will not take away rights without due process (but states still can), self-incrimination. 6. Speedy public trial by jury, know charges. 7. Jury trial in civil suits. 8. No excessive bail. Cruel and unusual punishment. 9. Natural rights no enumerated in constitution are still held by people. 10. If it doesn’t say it in the constitution, feds can’t do it.
16
Q
11th
Amendment process.
A
- States immune from suits of out of state citizens and foreigners.
Remember an amendment has to be proposed by 2/3 vote of both houses or by a national convention called by Congress at the request of 2/3 of state legislatures (never happened). It has to be ratified by 3/4 of state legislatures, or by 3/4 state conventions (only to repeal the 18th)
17
Q
First Party System
A
- Adams elected and Jefferson is VP because runner up. Adams is Hamiltonian federalist: pro-Britain, mercantilism, patent protection, balanced imports and exports, protect against democracy, limited free speech. Versus Jefferson Democratic Republicans: yeoman farmers, free land for small white families, pro-France, free speech, export raw mats and import manufactured goods. No U.S. manufacture.
18
Q
Alien and Sedition Acts
A
- Make it harder to become a citizen. Make it illegal to criticize the U.S. government. Virginia and Kentucky claim right to nullify this act.
19
Q
ON TEST Marbury V. Madison
A
- Adams trying to sabotage Jefferson as he takes office, appoints a ton of federal judges, but a few don’t get their appointments in time and Jefferson refuses to extend them, through Madison, so Marbury invokes the Judiciary Act to force Madison to give him the appointment. SCOTUS refuses and calls that part of the Judiciary Act to give them jurisdiction over such cases of enforcement unconstitutional. J gives itself power to make L unconstitutional and its decisions become actual law.
20
Q
12th
Commonwealth v. Pullis
A
- VP no longer runner up. Electoral college simplified so there is no possibility of a tie like there was between Jefferson and Burr. Electors vote once for P and once for VP.
- Cordwainer’s case→ indictment against boot makers and shoemakers for conspiring to raise their wages→ jury found the union was illegal and defendants were found guilty. A doctrine known as the labor conspiracy theory was developed that stated that collective bargaining would interfere with the market and destroy competition
21
Q
People V. Ruggles (N.Y.)
A
- Despite NY constitution, similar to U.S. constitution’s 1st amendment, disestablishing the government from The Church of England or any other religion, Ruggles is charge with blasphemy because it is a common law crime passed down from England. The Court specified that blasphemy was only when someone spoke out against Christianity, not against other religions. “we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply ingrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those imposters.” They cited laws against immorality and laws recognizing Sunday as the day of worship as evidence of Christianity’s status under the common law. This was cited as precedent in Reynolds.
22
Q
Jackson’s victory of New Orleans
A
- End of Federalist party. Era of good feelings. U.S. market revolution is definitely not Jeffersonian, but their victory over Britain is definitely not Hamiltonian.
23
Q
ON TEST McCullough V. Maryland
A
- 2nd national bank is constitutional and Maryland can’t tax it so McCullough was right to not pay up. Anything appropriate is “necessary and proper.”
24
Q
Johnson v. M’Intosh
A
- Private citizens can’t buy land from Native Americans. Aboriginal title established through agricultural occupation is alienable only through Federal intervention, not private or state.
25
Office of Indian Affairs
New York Completes Erie Canal
1824.
1825. 300 mile long canal connects Great Lakes to the Hudson river making NYC the most important port in the U.S. This is the time of the market revolution and the first industrial revolution. Steam ships. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is completed in 1828. Steam powered factories make it so factories can spring up anywhere, not just along rivers. The bank of the U.S. is funding infrastructure. Slaves are producing 3/4 of the worlds cotton. SCOTUS is fostering competition between corporations. Corporations are building 3000 miles of navigable canals, but SCOTUS is giving them eminent domain to do it under the 5th amendment. Factories bring together all contributors to a product instead of farming out half finished products to people to finish at home. People started to GO TO WORK instead of assemble from home. Women in the cult of domesticity housekeep so that their husbands can go to work for wages. The clock instead of the sun. Wage for an hour instead of for product. Work for a capitalist who owned factory instead of working own land (and land is freedom). This lack of freedom spurred many to go west. So many, that capitalists had to find their labor elsewhere, such as the Irish coming from the 1845 potato famine. Work that matters to your belly versus work that nobody will notice if you don't do well. Telegraph is invented. Things can be shipped to consumers much more cheaply.
26
Second Party System
Tariffs
1828. Jackson elected because 21 of 24 states eliminated property requirements for white male vote. Whigs rise up in response to Jackson's monarchical behavior. Jacksonian democrats want power in the executive. Whigs are elite northerners who make money off speculation and investment. Democrats make money by producing things, or owning slaves who produce things.
1828. Congress passed tariffs on imports of wool, iron. This helps the north because now their wool, iron goods are artificially cheaper in comparison, but it hurts the south because they don't manufacture goods. South threatens to nullify these tariffs.
27
Indian Removal Act
1830. Congress authorizes Executive to set aside lands west of Mississippi to exchange for Native American lands east of Mississippi.
28
Cherokee Nation V. Georgia
1831. Cherokee claim that Georgia as a state has no authority over them since they are a foreign nation. SCOTUS refuses to rule because the Cherokee are nothing but wandering hoards and they are dependent wards, not an independent nation, so they have no standing in a U.S. court.
29
Worcester V. Georgia
Panic of 1837
1832. SCOTUS repents of its earlier decision (some justices actually feel guilty at how they cheated them out of so much land that same year) now saying that the Cherokee is sovereign nation and that Georgia has no jurisdiction to imprison white missionaries for entering Cherokee land (supposedly it was against Georgia law for white people to enter Cherokee land without state approval, which it granted without Cherokee approval). Jackson refused to enforce this ruling and get the white missionary out of jail because he didn't want to piss off Georgia since SC had just nullified a tariff law and threatened to secede if Jackson forced them to implement it.
1837. Jackson refused to extend the national bank and his pet banks printed way too much paper money. This inflation combined with land speculation (capitalists get richer just by loaning money) which Jackson tried to stop by saying all land must now be bought in gold/silver (specie) not credit, made all that paper money unbackable with specie since all the specie was in land. People went to withdraw their silver and it wasn't there.
30
Indian Reservation System
1851. Designed to keep Indians corralled off land whites wanted.
31
Third Party System
1854. Same year as Kansas Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri compromise, the Free Soil party in 1848 had split the Democratic party over slavery and so antislavery democrats joined Whigs to form the Republican Party. No more whigs, now antislavery Republicans and proslavery Democrats.
32
Dred Scott v. Stanford
1857. Black people, regardless of slavery, are not citizens nor were they ever meant to be citizens under the constitution. There are no such things as free states.
33
13th
Economy of Civil War
1865. Slavery is only permitted as punishment for a crime.
The U.S. is a complete Hamiltonian national debt nation state, not a Jeffersonian agrarian utopia. There are more than 30,000 miles of RR in the U.S. Fed gives land to RR companies, prints national currency, institutes an income tax to pay for the Civil War. Huge boon for northern manufacture who had to make arms and clothing for the 800,000 soldiers who died. This makes the U.S. into the most industrial nation on the planet by 1880.
34
14th
1868. Overturns Dred Scott. All persons born or naturalized in U.S. are U.S. citizens. Blacks count as a whole person for population, but Indians don't. No rebels may hold office. Confederacy owes debts for war. Union owes none. Citizen clause overturns Dred. Due process prohibits states from taking life liberty or property without due process from citizens. Seem to make the states beholden to the BOR, not just congress, but it is not interpreted as applying all BOR to the states. Every right has to be incorporated to the states one by one. This means that SCOTUS has to strike down states laws that go against the BOR one by one until they are all incorporated. This power is used in Brown v. Board, Roe v. Wade, Bush v. Gore.
Equal protection clause prohibits discrimination and applies even to non-citizens living in states.
To think of due process another way, states can go ahead and take away rights, but not without due process. So state laws that blanket eliminate rights, such as anti-abortion laws, are automatically violating that once abortion is deemed a right. A person might say, as Jane Roe did, "the state of Texas is taking away my right to an abortion without due process because of their law that takes it away from everyone automatically," so the supreme court has to decide if abortion is a right.
35
15th
1870. All races can vote provided they are citizens and male.
36
Indian Appropriations Act.
1871. Overturned Worcester v. Georgia. No longer was any group of Indians in the United States recognized as an independent nation by the federal government. Indians are no longer treated as tribes with whom anyone can make a treaty, instead they are individuals treated as wards of the federal government. This act has never been overturned.
37
Reynolds v. U.S.
1878. SCOTUS rejected Reynolds' argument that the Latter-day Saint practice of plural marriage was protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Thus, his conviction was upheld, as was the constitutionality of the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act under the reasoning that monogamy was inherited from England under common law upon which U.S. was based, and established the U.S. as a white Christian nation saying that polygyny was “odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people.” The 1811 Ruggles antiblasphemy case was used by the U.S. as precedent that despite disestablishment, the U.S. was a Christian nation.
38
Carlisle Indian Industrial School
U.S. Economic snapshot
1879. Kill the Indian. Save the man.
1880. More U.S. work in industry than in agriculture for the first time. But still only 20% live in cities. RR invent time zones. Captains of industry Stanford, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, are richer and more powerful than the government. Robber Baron Rockefeller's Standard Oil buys up 90% of competitors.
39
Chinese Exclusion Act
Civil Service Act
1882. 100,000 Chinese living in U.S. at the time.
1883. Civil Service Act which means people have to apply and pass a test to get some federal posts rather than simply buying them as the spoils of helping a candidate get elected. However, this backfires. Since they can no longer compensate individuals with posts, individuals don't help them. Instead huge corporations help them with even more money and they compensate by creating policy favorable to those corporations.
40
U.S. v. Kagama
Haymarket Riots
1886. Congress, not the states have authority over Indian Affairs since Indians are "dependent domestic nations." This is not argued under the commerce clause article 1, but from some other understanding, (not sure where) that the tribes have a "status" of dependent domestic nations.
1886. The Knights of Labor are up to over 800,000 members after only a decade from starting and they get into a clash with the police that turns violent, harming their reputation and branding them radicals and socialists. The American Federation of Labor is formed as a less radical alternative, it is also for more skilled labor.
41
Dawes Act
1887. Allots small parcels of land to individual Native families, not tribes, so that they can become civilized and Christianized and self-reliant farmers. But once the allocation is made, the remaining land goes to non-natives who take away 86 million of the remaining 138 million acres of land. If Indians can submit to this life style and make the land prosper and become effectively white and hold on to that for 25 years, they can become citizens.
42
Sherman Anti Trust Act
Homestead Steel Strike
Pullman Strike
1890. Prohibits combinations that restrain trade but is mostly used against unions, not monopolies.
1892. strike occurred in 1892 at the Carnegie Steel Company's steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Private guards were hired and the strike turned violent, resulting in most workers leaving the union and returning to work
1894. Grover Clevland ordered troops to end a railroad strike in Chicago
43
ON TEST Plessy v. Ferguson
1896. Separate treatment doesn't imply inferiority under the law as long as equal. Segregation in public does not violate the 14th equal protection as long as separate but equal.
44
Fourth Party System
U.S. v Wong Kim Ark
1896. After the compromise of 1877 ending reconstruction when white Republicans lost interest in antiracism and Black Republicans were lynched and subjugated under Jim Crow, race ceases to be the issue dividing the parties. The populist party (anti: elite, cities, banks, railroads, and gold) endorses William Jennings Bryan against William McKinley in 1896. Democrats are poor xenophobic whites who think the government should do something to correct social ills. Republicans are rich imperialistic whites who think government should step in to expand U.S. business interests abroad. McKinley wins because of 10 million dollars in corporate financing of his campaign. Wilson is the only democrat during this system.
1898. ABC are entitled to U.S. citizenship because of the 14th. Why this didn't go without specifying is testament to the fact that Indians were also not citizens under the 14th and wouldn't be until Dawes and only then conditionally, not automatically by virtue of their birth.
45
16th
Economic snapshot
1913. Congress can levy an income tax and does so on the richest 5%. This gives the U.S. a huge new revenue source so it is less dependent on he Whiskey tax, opening up possibility of prohibition.
Farms are less owned by families because they require huge investments of capital for irrigation projects and so owned by RR companies. In other areas, this was the agricultural golden age because of the millions of land claims in the homestead act since the middle of the country had been wrested from Native Americans. Populations of Texas and Oklahoma increase by 2 million. People move to Dakota, Nebraska, Kanasas. Their animals eat up all the roots, and the top soil blows away in 1930. One reason people move to these places is because the cities are crowded and the factories are horrifying. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle prompts the Federal Food Inspection Act. The Hepburn Act gives feds control over RR prices. There is a new idea that government could enhance rather than threaten freedom. Perhaps government could solve the problems of industrial capitalist society. Mechanization limits opportunities for skilled workers. Taylorism is the science of time saving in factories and classrooms. Productivity. A debate between government by experts versus increased popular democratic participation.
46
17th
1913. U.S. Senators are selected by popular vote instead of state legislatures. This is a huge expansion of democracy.
47
Clayton Act
1914. Makes unions exempt from Sherman Antitrust Act. declared that human labor was not an article of commerce, and that labor unions were not to be considered a violation of antitrust laws→ Businesses fought back with yellow dog contracts, in which applicants acknowledged that they were not union members and agreed not to become one→ The Norris-Laguardia Act eventually made yellow dog contracts unenforceable as against public policy
48
U.S v. Nice
Keating Owen Act
Adamson Act
1916. When Natives prove their whiteness under Dawes and become citizens of the U.S., they are still wards under the plenary powers of Congress, not citizens of states.
1916. Outlaws child labor.
1916. 8-hour work day for RR workers.
49
Schenck V. U.S.
1919. No free speech if it is a "clear and present danger" to the U.S.
50
18th
1919. No making or selling alcohol in the U.S.
51
19th
1920. Women can vote. And they do in order to vote against immigrant infested saloons and vote for the rights to divorce drunk husband and to own land so not beholden to drunk husbands.
52
Immigration Act of 1924
1924. Quota for each national origin. 0 for most Asian countries. No quota for Mexicans because California's corporate mechanized farms are dependent on their labor.
53
Gitlow V. New York
Economic snapshot
1925. Upheld NY's decision to jail Gitlow for publishing a socialist manifesto and not even on the "clear and present danger" precedent. However, in hearing the case at all, the court showed that it was beginning to reverse the 1833 Bitlow v. Baltimore precedent which is that the U.S. BOR only applied to Congress, and not to the states. In Bitlow, the states were free to enforce statutes that restricted the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, and that the federal courts could not interfere with the enforcement of such statutes. Gitlow "incorporated" Free Speech as one of the BOR that, through the 14th amendment's due process clause, applied to the states. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press were "among the fundamental personal rights and 'liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the states." Now almost all of the BOR have been incorporated in that way.
U.S. produces 40% of world's industrial goods. 70% of U.S. live in cities.
54
Wave of Bank Failures
Near V. Minnesota
1930. Thanks to Jackson, the U.S. is still mostly small banks dependent on their own resources, no FDIC yet. People rush on banks, so there is no money for them to buy things. This causes the demand curve to shift to the left, lowering the equilibrium price (deflation). Businesses fire people because the quantity demanded is lower, fired people can't buy, prices drop, banks no longer lending so employers can't borrow, businesses go bankrupt so there are less jobs for people to get money to buy stuff that keep businesses open, and the cycle starts again. The Federal Reserve does nothing to infuse money to combat the deflationary cycle. It became global because G was forced to pay 33 billion in reparations to F and B for WWI which it couldn't pay without borrowing from U.S. banks. But the banks were now collapsed. The U.S. itself was owed 10 billion by F and B, which they were planning on paying once G paid them, but G couldn't pay them. When the largest economies in the world fail, world trade stops. Then, just when world trade needs a jump start, Hawley Smoot Tariff (make Europeans pay 20% to sell their goods here) disrupts world trade even more because F and B respond with their own tariffs. Trade drops by 75%.
1931. SCOTUS strikes down a state's censorship of "scandalous" newspapers. This was used as precedent when Nixon wanted to censor the NYT for publishing the Pentagon Papers.
55
20th
1932. Term start date moves from March to January to reduce the lame duck period. Also stipulates that if a president elect dies, the VP elect will be the president.
56
Fifth Party System
1932. FDR. Democrats: Unprecedentedly huge government that takes over the entire economy, that competes with big business, and that institutes social welfare. Black people are somewhat helped by this and by 1936 90% of Black people vote Democrat., once the party of racism. Both parties somewhat join forces against a common enemy after WWII: communism. Eisenhower is the only Republican during this system.
57
21st
Indian Reorganization Act
Wagner Act
1933. Repeals the 18th. Only amendment done through the special state committee method.
1934. This is the Indian New Deal. Individual Indians can organize themselves into tribes and have reservation and tribal land again, but they are still not seen as sovereign nations that have treaty making power with other sovereign nations.
1935. gave labor unions certain legal rights and powers under federal law. Unions now have the right to collectively bargain without domination of employers. It prevents employers from interfering with employees' right to collectively bargain and discriminating against employees in hiring or firing because of union membership
Wagner Act also recreated the National Labor Relations Board that has the power to investigate employee complaints and issue cease and desist orders against violating companies
58
U.S. v. Butler
1936. FDRs AAA is too much of a federal overreach into the intrastate economy when the commerce clause limits Congress authority to interstate trade. Making the payment of a government subsidy to a farmer conditional on the reduction of the planned crops went beyond the powers of the national government.
59
U.S. V. Carolene Products Co.
1938. Establishes a tier of judicial scrutiny and this one falls under "strict scrutiny." A law that takes away a fundamental constitutional right can constitutional only if there is a "compelling state interest."
60
Executive Order 9066
1942. Placed 110,000 U.S. citizens in concentration camps in the U.S. based on perceived race.
61
Korematsu v. U.S.
1944. Korematsu refuses to relocate to the concentration camp saying it violated the 5th amendment. SCOTUS applied the "strict scrutiny" standard for the first time stating that the elimination of his 5th amendment right was constitutional because putting Japanese Americans in a concentration camp was a "compelling state interest."
62
McCollum V. Board of Education
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
1948. The state may not use its tax supported public education system to aid religious instruction with "released time." It is a violation of the establishment clause.
1948. GATT. is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its preamble, its purpose was the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis." Had 23 members at first. Average tariffs were 22%.
63
Dennis V. U.S.
1951. Simply being a communist is a crime. Free speech does not apply to communists.
64
22nd
1951. Presidents only elected twice for a total of 10 years maximum. FDR was elected 4 times. Washington's two term limit was only a tradition established by him.
65
Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson
1952. Movies are a form of speech, not just art, and therefore they cannot be censored just because they offend someone's religion. Freedom of speech. This overturned a 1915 case called Mutual Film v. Industrial Commission
66
ON TEST Brown v. Board of Education
1954. In 1947 federal court case called Mendez v. Westminster, it was held that segregating Mexican students was unlawful because their school facilities were not equal and also that desegregating them would uphold the American value of assimilation. The lawyers of the case wanted to argue that it was unlawful because Mexicans were white, not Black, implying that Black segregation is lawful (throwing another racial group under the bus, the opposite of intersectionality). This required all Orange Country schools to desegregate, however the governor of CA at the time, Earl Warren, mandated that the entire state desegregate. This governor was chief justice of SCOTUS in 1954, and so he struck down Plessy v. Ferguson and found that the purpose of segregation, regardless of whether the facilities were technically equal, was to demean Black people and cause psychological harm and an inferiority complex, citing social science research. Equal protection under the 14th, which limits a state's right to discriminate. This ruling caused a huge backlash in the south, which preferred to close public schools altogether rather than integrate them. They opened new private schools, flying the confederate flag, for whites only and Blacks didn't get state funded school at all. By 1960 only 2% of Black students were attending integrated schools in the south.
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Indian Relocation Act
23rd
1956. Indians given incentives to leave the reservations and become culturally white. 70% leave the reservations.
1960. D.C. gets electors in college.
68
Torcaso v. Watkins
1961. Court holds that the state of Maryland cannot require applicants for public office to swear that they believed in the existence of God. The court unanimously rules that a religious test violates the Establishment Clause.
69
Engle v. Vitale
1962. Any kind of prayer, composed by public school districts, even nondenominational prayer, is unconstitutional government sponsorship of religion.
70
Abington School District v. Schempp
Clean Air Act
1963. Court finds Bible reading over school intercom unconstitutional.
1963. is the comprehensive federal law that regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile sources. Among other things, this law authorizes EPA to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and public welfare and to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants
71
Civil Rights Act
1964. Prohibits states from discriminating on basis of race and sex in employment, schools, hospitals and even privately owned public places like restaurants, hotels, and theaters. Congress granted itself this authority over states under the interstate commerce clause of Article 1, the duty implied in the 14th of congress to ensure all citizens get equal protection under the law, and the duty to ensure that all have the right to vote under the 15th.
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24th
1964. If you can't pay the poll tax you can still vote. But the South ignores this and the civil rights act, hence Selma.
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Goldwater runs against Johnson
1964. Since Johnson, a democrat, had passed the Civil Rights Act, Goldwater attracts racists to the Republican party, though he himself was actually a member of the NAACP and didn't mention race. He did, however think it was a state's right to decide if it wanted to desegregate or not.
74
Griswold v. Connecticut
1965. SCOTUS strikes down Connecticut law against contraception between a married couple as unjust under the precedent of "incorporating" BOR limitations on Congress to being limitations also on states with the 14th amendment, specifically the many BOR that imply privacy as freedom from government intrusion.
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Voting Rights Act
1965. The Executive has the right to send troops to oversee elections in the south, enforcing the 15th and 24th amendments.
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ON TEST Miranda v. Arizona
1966. No evidence will be admitted in court unless it is accompanied with proof that the person's 5th amendment rights have been read.
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25th
1967. When the president dies, the VP is the actual president, not just the acting president. Also establishes the line of authority if the VP dies and the next in line dies (threat of nuclear war). Also what to do if the president becomes incapacitated but not dead.
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Loving v. Virginia
1967. State laws banning interracial marriage violate both the Equal Protections clause and the Due Process clause of the 14th.
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Sixth Party System
1968. The rise of conservatism. Nixon runs on a campaign to deliberately win the remaining southern racist democrats over to the Republican party. He appeals to the silent majority of people willing to bystand atrocities committed in Vietnam. These are the people, largely white and college educated, who qualify for exemptions to the draft. For them, the war was a way to rid the country of Mexicans and Blacks, that was why they supported it. He makes the phrase "law and order" racial code for "white."
80
Menominee Tribe v. U.S.
1968. The tribe still did not have to abide by Wisconsin's fishing laws even though it had lost its federal recognition. Apparently that loss of recognition did not include the loss of being a ward of the federal government and, as such, unaffected by state laws.
81
Epperson v. Arkansas
1968. State statute banning teaching of evolution is unconstitutional. A state cannot alter any element in a course of study in order to promote a religious point of view
82
Lemon v. Kurtzman
Labor Snapshot.
1970. A Pennsylvania education act is unconstitutional because it violated the Establishment Clause of the 1st in using public school funds to pay the salaries of private Catholic school teachers that use public school text books.
Unions suffered in the 1970s and 1980s as the US moved away from manufacturing. Additionally, companies started to move jobs to states with weak union backgrounds or overseas, where there was cheaper labor. The general downward trend perseveres today as the U.S. economy continues to move from a focus on manufacturing to service and technology industries
83
26th
1971. Old people can't be barred from voting.
84
Green v. Connally
1971. Private, racially discriminatory Christian schools lose tax exempt status. This leads to Bob Jones University losing its tax exempt status in 1976, leading to 1977 Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell blaming Carter for taking their religious freedom to segregate their schools and in 1979 them seeking a more racially palatable issue to get evangelicals to rally behind Reagan who will let them have the local right to segregate. They settle on Roe v. Wade and abortion, an issue they didn't give a shit about at the time it passed in 1973.
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Federal Election Campaign Act
Economic snapshot
1971. Placed limits on individual and PAC contributions- limited campaign spending, required reporting of campaign contributions/expenditures, established system for public financing of presidential campaigns, created FEC- enforces campaign contribution/spending limits, monitors disclosure compliance.
1971. Manufacture declined because WWII's Marshal Plan worked too well and Japan and Germany's goods were higher quality. For the first time since the Market Revolution, the U.S. imported more manufactured goods than it exported. So Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard to make U.S. goods cheaper overseas. Didn't work. U.S. manufacturing went under.
1973. Arab states protest U.S. support of Israel and suspend oil exports. Prices of everything skyrocket because everything uses oil. Wages did not rise for 20 years and there was inflation.
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Furman v. Georgia
1972. Cause all death penalty cases at the time to be reduced to life imprisonment because, as currently implemented, the death penalty was cruel and unusual under the 8th amendment (some justices thought it was inherently cruel and unusual). No more death penalty in the U.S. until each state that wanted it back brought new cases to the court ensuring that the death penalty would not be administered in a capricious or discriminatory manner. Each judge wrote her/his own opinion. Georgia got the death penalty back a few years later with Gregg v Georgia.
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Wisconsin v. Yoder
1972. Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade. The parents' fundamental right to freedom of religion was determined to outweigh the state's interest in educating their children. The case is often cited as a basis for parents' right to educate their children outside of traditional private or public schools.
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War Powers Act
1973. Supposed to limit the executive powers to do war stuff without congressional approval like Truman did in Korea and like Johnson and Nixon did in Vietnam. It was in reaction to the leaked Pentagon Papers. It has been completely ignored by almost every president.
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ON TEST Roe v. Wade
1973. Due process in the 14th provides right to privacy in abortions through incorporation of the BOR. It makes abortion a "fundamental" right in the constitution, meaning that to take that right away would have to involve "strict scrutiny." However, increasing state regulations on the second and third trimesters were allowed. This ruling passed despite Nixon's recent appointment of an extremely conservative judge. The issue of abortion would not be used as a smoke screen for racism until Reagan and Falwell began their alliance in 1980 giving rise to the religious pretext for the racist right.
90
ON TEST U.S. v. Nixon
1974. The Executive is not above the law. Nixon must relinquish the tapes of him talking about Watergate in the oval office despite "executive privilege."
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ERA defeated
1974. Thanks to folks like Phyllis Schlafly and organizations like the Mormon church, 4 states shy of ratify the amendment. The vacuum, a consumer product of the free market, will make you free in your divine roll as a housewife.
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Gregg v. Georgia
1976. Death penalty back on in Georgia and many other states combined with this case. The death penalty serves two principal social purposes—retribution and deterrence.
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Buckley v Valeo
1976. Stuck down aspects of FECA because because campaign spending to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech. More money equals more speech.
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American Indian Religious Freedom Act
1978. Natives should have access to their sacred cites on federal park lands as long as their ceremonies don't interrupt white people. Offers an apology for demonizing and criminalizing Native dances and religious practices such as the extirpation of the Ghost Dance that led to the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Protected the use of peyote and kava?
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ON TEST Regents of UC v. Bakke
Carter Economics
1978. Diversity in university classrooms is a compelling state interest so affirmative action on the basis of race is upheld, but if it is on the basis of a 16/100 racial quota alone, that is frowned upon by the court, but not necessarily unconstitutional. Ambiguous as far as a precedent.
Carter attempted to return to free market economics and use small government in response to inflation and joblesseness, which were two things that had never gone hand in hand before (normally it was deflation and joblessness). This undermined the Keynesian idea that government could control macroeconomics, so Carter tried not doing anything (Hoover's tactic).
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Wallace v. Jaffree
Reaganomics
1985. State's moment of silence for prayer at public school statute is unconstitutional where legislative record reveals that motivation for statute was the encouragement of prayer, which is religious. Had the statue been secular, it would have been fine. This was taken to court because students were being made fun of for refusing to participate in the prayer that teachers were authorized to recite aloud. So this wasn't just a moment of silence.
Reagan said Freedom more than any other president. He meant freedom of corporations to exploit workers, to ruin the environment, to segregate, to discriminate, to not pay tazes. He lowered the taxes for the rich, meaning the government was getting less money but it wasn't spending less money because of the arms race. Helping out the rich to get richer was supposed to trickle down, yet income inequality doubled. The richest 1% now had 40% of the U.S. wealth. The poorest got 20% poorer. But he opened up a whole new industry that used Black bodies as its product: the prison industrial complex through the war on drugs.
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Bowers v. Hardwick
1986. SCOTUS upholds Georgia's anti-sodomy law.
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Whistleblower Protection Act
1989. Federal government cannot retaliate, or threaten to retaliate, against government employees if these reveal government wrongdoing.
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27th
1992. Congress pay increases don't take affect until the next cycle so that congress aren't giving themselves pay raises.
100
Planned Parenthood v Casey
1992. Abortion is still a right, but not a fundamental right, so no more strict scrutiny if states want to impinge upon that right. Also for the question of whether an abortion can be regulated, trimester no longer matters. The only question is whether or not the fetus would survive if born at the time of the abortion.
101
Shaw v. Reno
NAFTA
1993. Black political leaders in North Carolina were redistricting in order to get Black people elected, which they had recently done for the first time in over 100 years. In this case, there was one district that was Black majority, but by redrawing, two black majority districts could be created. White people called this reverse racism against the 14th amendment and SCOTUS agreed saying that redistricting based on race falls under strict scrutiny, meaning it can only be done if there is a "compelling government interest" and, apparently, Black representation in congress is not a compelling government interest.
1994. Nafta has cut a path of destruction through Mexico. Since the agreement went into force in 1994, the country’s annual per capita growth flat-lined to an average of just 1.2 percent -- one of the lowest in the hemisphere. Its real wage has declined and unemployment is up. As heavily subsidized U.S. corn and other staples poured into Mexico, producer prices dropped and small farmers found themselves unable to make a living. Some two million have been forced to leave their farms since Nafta.
102
ON TEST Adarand Constructors v Penya
World Trade Organization
1995. Discrimination against advantaged groups (to favor disadvantaged groups) falls under a looser scrutiny than discrimination based on race, which must be strict scrutiny in order to be constitutional. Since this was a government contract, the federal government is also held to the same standards as the states under the 14th. This makes the 14th apply to the feds even though it was really meant for the states. Adarand wins because the contract was descriminatory against white people in that it favored Mexicans.
1995. GATT became WTO. 123 nations now and average tariffs only 5%.
103
ON TEST U.S. v. Virginia
1996. The Virginia Military Institute loses its male-only admissions policy using the Brown v Board argument because their female institute was completely inferior.
104
Freedom of Information Act
1997. requires executive branch federal agencies to provide information about government not published in Federal Register when requested by journalists, researchers, or public in name of open and transparent government in democracy- protects First Amendment freedom of press, some exceptions (personal privacy, trade secrets, law enforcement, national security concerns)
105
ON TEST Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board
2000. The 2000 presidential election remained in limbo with the outcome dependent on the winner of the popular vote in Florida. Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush held a slim lead in the tally. Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore challenged the decision of Florida's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, to certify the results of the presidential election and the Florida Supreme Court demanded she recount. Bush didn't want her to recount and a unanimous court held that there was "considerable uncertainty" as to the reasons for a recount.
The court demanded the Florida Supreme Court clarify its ruling.
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Bush v. Gore
2000. Once the Florida Supreme Court clarifies, Bush calls for a stay on the recount. SCOTUS grants the stay because differential counting in various counties violates his equal protection under the 14th and it is too late to make a uniform equitable recount possible. Later research found that had a recount been done, Gore would have won. When Bush got Florida, it gave him 27 electoral votes (winner takes all in electoral system) which gave him 1 more than Gore.
107
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
2002. Prohibited national parties from soliciting/spending soft money, limited contributions to candidates, prohibited issue ads on TV/radio that used candidate’s name, required candidates/group running ads to disclose who paid for ad, corporations cannot participate in electioneering activities with issue-based adds in the runup to an election.
108
Lawrence v. Texas
2003. SCOTUS finds anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional under due process of 14th connected to BOR privacy. This overruled Bowers v. Hardwick of 1986.
109
Grutter v. Bollinger
2003. Favoring underrepresented minorities is fine as long as other factors are considered on an individual basis. Essentially established 1978 Bakke as law.
110
DC v Heller
Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee
2008. The Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, unconnected with service in a militia, for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home, and that the District of Columbia's handgun ban and requirement that lawfully owned rifles and shotguns be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock" violated this guarantee.
2010. As long as Citizen's United is not working on a candidates actual campaign, they are allowed to make a negative video (Hillary The Movie) about the other candidate, and spend as much money as they want on it, in the runup to an election because of free speech, despite the Bipartisan election reform act of 2002 which says that corporations cannot make ads with issue-based messaging in the runup to an election. So this led to the idea of Super PACS which are organizations that technically have nothing to do with a specific campaign, but they can campaign for that candidate themselves and accept as much money as they want, because as long as it isn't going directly to the candidates, it is soft money and post 2010 soft money is okay again (though Bipartizan 2002 outlawed it). So this case tested the constitutionality of Bipartizan 2002 and found it unconstitutional.
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Patriot Act
2011. Clarifies search and seizure rights of 4th amendment. Represents constant need to adapt to changing technology: thermal imaging device to detect heat emanating from house is a search; drug-sniffing dog to detect odor from suitcase is not a search.
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Political Systems
i. Parliamentary system: executive and legislative functions both reside in elected assembly (parliament)- selects leaders of executive branch of government (Cabinet)
ii. Presidential governments: executive branch separate from legislative and judicial
iii. Authoritarian: citizens alck most civil rights, human rights abuses occur, government criticism is restricted
iv. Autocracy: power and authority in hands of single individual
1. Totalitarian dictatorship- ideas of single leader are glorified; government seeks to control all aspects of social and economic life
2. Monarchy- king/queen/emperor exercises all supreme powers of government; absolute monarchs have complete and unlimited power to rule people
3. Constitutional monarchs- share governmental powers with elected legislatures/serve mainly as ceremonial leaders of governments
v. Oligarchy: small group holds power; power from wealth/military power, social position/combo; claim rule for people and have some type of legislature/national assembly elected by or representing the people; however, legislatures approve only policies and decisions already made by leaders
vi. Democracy: rule by the people; popular sovereignty
1. Direct democracy- people govern selves by voting on issues individually as citizens
2. Representative democracy- people elect representatives and give them the responsibility and power to make laws and conduct government- voters are source of government’s authority
