Exam 2 Flashcards

(50 cards)

1
Q

Amendment 16

A

• Congress has power to tax incomes

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2
Q

Amendment 17

A

• Direct election of senators

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3
Q

Amendment 18

A

Prohibition

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4
Q

Lone Wolf v. Louisiana

A

Congress can abrogate treaties unilaterally to care for and protect Indians

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5
Q

Allgeyer v. Louisiana

A

(“to be free in the enjoyment of all his faculties. . . to use them in all lawful ways; to live and work where he will; to earn his livelihood by any lawful calling; to pursue any livelihood or avocation, and for that purpose to enter into all contracts which may be proper, necessary and essential to his carrying out to a successful conclusion the purposes above mentioned.”)

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6
Q

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company

A

(“One of the points made and
discussed at length in the brief of counsel for defendants in error was that ‘corporations are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.’ Before argument, Mr. Chief Justice Waite said: The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.”)

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7
Q

T. Roosevelt on Corporations from 1908 State of the Union Address

A

(The proposal to make the National
Government supreme over, and therefore to give it complete control over, the railroads and other instruments of interstate commerce is merely a proposal to carry out to the letter one of the prime purposes, if not the prime purpose, for which the Constitution was rounded. It does not represent centralization. It represents merely the acknowledgment of the patent fact that centralization has already come in business. If this irresponsible outside business power is to be controlled in the interest of the general public it can only be controlled in one way–by giving adequate power of control to the one sovereignty capable of exercising such power–the National Government. )

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8
Q

Sherman Antitrust Act

A

a. Sought to prohibit anti-competitive, monopolistic business practices
b. United States v. E.C. Knight Company
i. Decides to decrease the power of the national government to regulate monopolies

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9
Q

Woodrow Wilson, “The Meaning of Democracy”

A

• American cannot be a place of unrestricted enterprise
• The question of Woodrow Wilson’s campaign was how to deal with the powerful corporations that had rapidly arisen in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and now seemed to dominate the economy
o Proposed to address the problem with active government intervention to recreate the conditions of economic competition; Industrial liberty
• Roosevelt accepted monopolies as inevitable and proposed subjecting them to perpetual government supervision and administration; industrial absolutism

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10
Q

Slaughter-House Cases

A

a. Louisiana uses police powers to make a corporate slaughterhouse
b. Justice Fields dissents
i. Believes the state legislature isn’t allowed to decide what the police powers are
ii. Wanted to read the 14th amendment broadly
iii. Thinks that we should have national control of business
iv. National uniformity of natural rights that government can implement
v. This violates an inalienable right
1. Substantive Due Process
a. Protects individual business
b. Exists during the Lochner Era

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11
Q

Theodore Roosevelt, “A Charter of Democracy”

A

• Had been out of the White House for four years, and during that time had become increasingly radical
• Launched himself back into presidential politics with an attack on judges
• Unhappy with his successor President Taft, Roosevelt decided to run again
• Advocated for the recall of judges
o “The recall will have to be adopted or else it will have to be made much easier than it now is to get rid, not merely of a bad judge but of a judge who, however virtuous, has grown so out of touch with social needs and facts that he is unfit longer to render good service on the bench”
• Woodrow Wilson won the election

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12
Q

Taft, “Veto of Arizona Statehood”

A

• In 1910 popular conventions were held in the territories of Arizona and New Mexico to draft proposed constitutions as part of the process of applying for statehood
• The Arizona Constitution dominated by Democrats, included many of the popular institutional features of the era, including initiative, referendum, and recall provisions
• Constitution was ratified by Arizona voters and forwarded to Congress and the president for their approval and admission for statehood
o President Taft vetoed statehood in 1911 because the recall provision of the Arizona constitution applied to judges as well as other elected officials
• Recall provision was quickly modified and Arizona was admitted to statehood in February 1912

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13
Q

Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company

A

In 1894 it decled an income tax unconstitutional

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14
Q

Frothingham v. Mellon

A

• The 1921 federal Maternity Act authorized a cooperative arrangement with the states by which the federal government would provide money and support to those states that joined the federal program to protect the health of mothers and infants
• Massachusetts filed a suit to block the implementation of the statute
• Frothingham argued that the Maternity Act involved the federal government in policies that were within the exclusive province of the states
• Unanimous court decision to dismiss both cases on the grounds that neither the state nor the taxpayer had standing to initiate a federal case
o The court did not have a general commission to correct constitutional errors or adjust the political relationship between the federal government and the states

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15
Q

United States v. E.C. Knight Company

A
  • American Sugar Refining Company held 98% of the United States sugar stock. The “sugar trust” was among the most notorious in the country at the time
  • Department of Justice charged that the trust violated the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act by creating a combination in restraint of trade and asked the federal circuit court to void the sale of the E.C. Knight Company
  • Circuit Court declined to do so and the government appealed to the Supreme Court
  • In an 8-1 ruling, the Court held that Congress could not regulate the production of goods under the commere clause and that the executive could not use the Sherman Act to block the operation of the sugar trust
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16
Q

Champion v. Ames, The Lottery Case

A
  • Many saw lotteries to be a valuable source of revenue, but there was a mobilized opposition that saw them as harmful to the poor, to families and to the public morals
  • Anti-gambling activists finally succeeded in winning a federal ban on the interstate traffic of lottery tickets in 1895
  • Opened the door to federal regulations on topics that had been the traditional purview of states
  • Did the power to “regulate” interstate commerce include the power to prohibit certain items from moving in interstate commerce
  • When C.F. Champion was indicted and arrested for attempting to smuggle tickets of the Pan-American Lottery Company, based in Paraguay, from Texas to California in a sealed container to be carried by the Wells-Fargo Express Company, he challenged his detention as unconstitutional
  • Court held 5-4 to uphold the statute
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17
Q

Hammer v. Dagenhart

A

• Prohibition of child labor was an international cause of Progressive reformers at the turn of the 20th century North was particularly concerned about growing competition from the economies of the less developed South, where child labor laws, as with other labor regulations, were often looser.
• Reform campaign turned to the federal government to impose a national uniform standard
• President Wilson helped convince southern senators not to filibuster the measure for the good of the Democratic Party
o In 1916 signed into law the Keating-Owen Act, banning the interstate shipment of goods produced with child labor
o Law was quickly challenged when a N. Carolina father south an injunction so that his two minor sons could continue working in a local cotton mill
• 5-4 Court struck down the statute as inconsistent with the interstate commerce clause

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18
Q

Missouri v. Holland

A

• By the early 20th century conservationists had tired of wrestling with holdout states that favored hunters, and turned to federal government to trump them
• In 1916 the United States and Great Britain completed a treaty committing each nation to regulating the hunting of birds that migrated between the United States and Canada
o In 1918 on the basis of the treaty Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
• Empowered the Secretary of Agriculture to create a national hunting season
• Many states changed their own policies to match the new federal restrictions, but not all cooperated and many hunters flouted the federal laws in the Midwest and the South
• Missouri attorney general Frank McAllister was among those who opposed the federal limitations on hunting. When federal game warden Ray Holland received a tip that McAllister was going with friends on an out-of-season hunt, Holland was eager to make an example.
o Arrested McAllister and fined him
• McAllister filed suit in U.S. district court to prevent Holland from enforcing the federal regulations, which were in conflict with both the state’s own hunting laws and the state’s traditional property rights
• District court upheld federal act
o Concluding that the regulation of migratory birds was not “remote” from the natural subject matter of international treaties and could be seen as benefiting “all the states”
• Supreme Courts opinion upholding the ruling of the district court and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is famous for its broad reading of the federal treaty power as a source of congressional authority in domestic affairs that supplemented the powers enumerated in Article I, Section 8
• Gave congress the and the president to take the actions that they thought were in the national interest, even if those actions trenched on the traditional authority of the states to regulate persons and property within their borders
• Opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. is famous in this case for his bold declaration of the philosophy of living Constitution, an “organism” that could grow beyond the expectations of those who drafted it

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19
Q

Downes v. Bidwell, The Insular Cases

A

• The acquisition of Hawaii and Puerto Rico triggered an important debate over whether the protections and guarantees of the Constitution applied in these settings
• Did the provisions of the Bill of Rights apply to these territories or was it acceptable to approach these areas as occupied foreign lands, controlled by the United States but not part of the United States?
o Dred Scott and other Antebellum cases made clear that the Constitution did apply to territories
• The court addressed these issues in a series of 35 cases
• Most important cases was Downes v. Bidwell
o 5-4 vote the Court concluded that Congress could impose duties on goods imported from Puerto Rico; however, the justices could not agree on a rationale
• Justice Brown issued a statement announcing the decision of the Court

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20
Q

Munn v. State of Illinois

A

• In the early 1870s an agrarian political movement known as the Patrons of Husbandry developed in the Midwest in response to the economic power of railroads, corporations, and other property-owners who were in a position to take advantage of farmers

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21
Q

Theodore Roosevelt , An Autobiography

A
  • The most important factor in getting the right spirit in my Administration, next to the insistence upon courage, honesty, and a genuine democracy of desire to serve the plain people, was my insistence upon the theory that the executive power was limited only by specific restrictions and prohibitions appearingin the Constitution or imposed by the Congress under its Constitutional powers
22
Q

Taft, “Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers”

A
  • all the executive officers appointed by the President directly or indirectly are his subordinates
  • 2 principles, limiting Congressional interference with the Executive powers are clear
    • Congress may not exercise any of the powers vested in the President
    • it may not prevent or obstruct the use of means given him by the Constitution for the exercise of those powers
23
Q

Woodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the US

A

Checks and balances must be lodged with leadership and control in order to accomplish particular common goals

The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can.”
ii. Caught up in cult of leadership

24
Q

J.W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States

A
  • The Tariff Act of 1922 delegated the authority to set and impose customs duties on articles of imported merchandise. When, under a proclamation of the President, J.W. Hampton & Company was assessed a higher customs duty than was fixed by statute, the company sought relief in the courts.
  • Did the Tariff Act’s delegation of commerce power to the Executive Branch violate the Separation of Powers principle?
  • In a unanimous decision, the Court held that Congress, within “defined limits,” could vest discretion in Executive officers to make public regulations and direct the details of statutory execution. The Court argued that the same principle that allowed Congress to fix rates in interstate commerce also enabled it to remit to a rate-making body under the control of the Executive branch.
25
"Commonwealth Club Address"
• Two important themes o Need for old persistent experimentation by the national government to restore prosperity o the social and political commitment to providing economic and personal security for all citizens • Laid out a vision of a new “economic constitutional order” that was as concerned with checking private power and marshaling the power of government to advance the public good as with preventing the abuse of political power • “As I see it the task of Government in its relation to business is to assist the development of an economic declaration of rights, an economic constitutional order”
26
"Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower", Eisenhower
* 1st republican elected during New Deal Era * Created new republicanism that accepted the New Deal * Believed in the only constitution he saw, the one laid down by the current Supreme Court
27
F.D. Roosevelt, "Undelivered Speech on the Gold Clause Cases"
• Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard due to the depression • Several cases made it to the Supreme Court challenging the suspension of the gold clauses o Government won the cases o In preparation for a possible loss the President had drafted a speech • Announcing the President’s higher obligation to “protect the people” • Does not address the specific action that would have been taken to overrule the court
28
F.D. Roosevelt, "Fireside Chat on Court-Packing Plan"
* Roosevelt believed the Depression created the need for substantial national regulation of the economy * The Supreme Court declared many of these policies unconstitutional * The administration decided to take preemptive measures to ensure that policies like the Social Security Act pass * Proposed the Court-packing plan * Roosevelt proposed allowing the president to appoint an additional justice for each sitting justice who reached the age of 70, as long as the sitting justice had served at least 10 years * Max size was set at 15 * Defeated in Congress partly for reasons laid out by the Senate judiciary committee * Court began to flip and through normal procedures the New Deal was passed
29
"The Southern Manifesto"
* Southern representatives in Congress signed the Southern Manifesto which urged resistance to the Supreme Court’s decision ordering desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education * Manifesto was designed in part to pressure moderates into joining a united front and declaring their support for segregation in the face of the Supreme Court’s decision * Manifesto lent support to governors, state legislators, school administrators, and judges seeking to delay or obstruct the implementation of desegregation in schools and elsewhere.
30
Dwight Eisenhower, "Address to the Nation on the Introduction of Troops in Little Rock"
* Eisenhower was convinced that incrementalism and quite diplomacy with moderates in the South would be more effective in achieving desegregation than confrontation * Emphasized judicial decision on the case was the law of the land, that it be obeyed, and that the president had no choice but to enforce them
31
Cooper v. Aaron
In a signed, unanimous per curiam opinion, the Court held that the Arkansas officials were bound by federal court orders that rested on the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The Court noted that its interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in Brown was the supreme law of the land and that it had a "binding effect" on the states. The Court reaffirmed its commitment to desegregation and reiterated that legislatures are not at liberty to annul judgments of the Court. Assertion of Judicial Supremacy
32
Flast v. Cohen
* Tax payers cannot sue the government simply because they pay taxes * Taxpayers do not suffer distinctive harms as taxpayers when governments spend money unconstitutionally * Provided an occasion for expanding traditional standing doctrine * Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 authorized federal officials to provide educational assistance to low-income families * Believing this practice violated the Establishment Clause of the 1st amendment, protestants and other Americans United for Separation of Church and State along with other public interest groups, sought to construct a lawsuit that would bar such federal expenditures * 7 families were recruited to serve as plaintiffs. Each maintained they had standing to bring the lawsuit solely because they were federal taxpayers and that their tax revenues were being spent unconstitutionally * District Court dismissed the suit * Warren Court proved receptive and allowed the suit in an 8-1 ruling
33
Baker v. Carr
* Malapportionment was a common problem * Focused on Tennessee which had no reappointed in half a century despite the law calling for it every ten years * Baker sought a declaration that the existing state statutes apportioning the legislative districts violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment and an injunction blocking the state from holding any future elections under that apportionment scheme * 6-2 decision, Court struck down the state apportionment law * Justice Brennan’s majority opinion set out the modern formulation of the political question doctrine, even as it narrowed the scope of that doctrine by accepting the reapportionment cases as appropriate for judicial resolution
34
Schechter Poultry Corp v. United States
* Many liberal believed that the Great Depression required the national government to take a larger role in regulating the economy * Administration proposed National Industrial Recovery Act that allowed industries to establish wage and hours regulations themselves * Believed that once an agreement was reached on wages, hours, and other working conditions and then enforced by the national government it would enable NIRA to pass constitutional muster * Schechter brothers owned slaughterhouses in NYC. Bought chickens from out of state and sold to local stores. Convicted in federal district court of violating the fair competition standards. Conviction confirmed by the appeals court * Unanimous SC decision ruled that the commerce clause did not allow the national government to determine the wages and hours of local butchers
35
National Labor Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp.
* First issue on the judicial agenda after the election of 1936 was the Constitutionality of the Wagner Act * Wagner Act required that businesses recognize unions and pay iimy wages * Established the National labor Relations Board to monitor and penalize unfair labor practices * Jones & Laughlin was a corporation based in Penn but it was one of the largest producers of steel * NLRB had charged Jones & Laughlin with interfering with unionization efforts at its plant in Aliquippa Penn * Result was a major victory for the Roosevelt administration. Company cases were first to sustain a major New Deal program under the commerce clause
36
Wickard v. Filburn
• Showed how far the court was willing to go after 1937 to find a sufficient relationship to interstate commerce when considering the constitutionality of federal regulations of economic activity • The AAA of 1938 penalized farmers who harvested more than a specified quota of acres for wheat • Filburn exceeded this quota but did not sell the excess wheat o Filed an injunction to block Secreatry of Agriculture Claude Wickard from enforcing the AAA and declared the Act unconstitutional • Divided court ruled in favor of Filburn, a unanimous Supreme Court overturned the ruling saying that his actions could be regulated • Justice Jackson set down a new doctrinal standard, asking whether an activity considered in the aggregate exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce
37
Jackson Memo on Wickard
• Although a staunch defender of the New Deal the Wickard case left Jackson uneasy • Broke down the reasoning for allowing congress to regulate o 1. Since the economic test is to be applied, the commerce power is no longer a legal question but an economic, and hence, policy one. o 2. Judicial standards or legal standards for determining the limit of Congressional power are so tenuous and vague that they constitute no protection to the states in any event and that while the pretense of review has some effect in relieving Congress of its own ultimate responsibility, it is a shadow without substance
38
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
* Heart of Atlanta was a large motel located near downtown Atlanta. ¾ of the guests were from out of state. The motel did not rent rooms to blacks, given that policy the owners of the motel sought a declaratory judgment that the Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional * Motel argued that Congress had exceeded its authority under the interstate commerce clause in trying to reach a business such as the motel, violated the due process and takings clauses of the 5th amendment by attempting to direct them how to operate their business, and violated the 13th amendment by forcing them against their will to rent their rooms to African-Americans * Justices forced only the commerce-clause and upheld the law
39
South Carolina v. Katzenbach
* Voting Rights Act barred some literacy tests and other registration requirements, and made preclearance from the Justice Department before changing voting rules or electoral procedures mandatory * South Carolina sought an injunction against the U.S. attorney general preventing the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. * SC brushed aside South Carolina’s constitutional challenge * Court made clear that the national legislation could outlaw literacy tests on the basis of its own legislative fact-finding about their use and effects. Established the principle that Congress could supply the facts to show that a state practice was unconstitutional and could act on that conclusion under the Reconstruction Amendments
40
Steward Machine Co. v. Davis
* The federal government could place a tax on employment to be paid by employers and employees. Taxpapyers could get up to a 90 percent credit, however, for all taxes they paid to a state unemployment fund, provided that the fund met certain conditions. * An Alabama steel services company, Steward Machine, paid the federal unemployment tax of $46.14 and then sued an internal revenue official in federal district court to have the payment returned on the grounds that the statute was unconstitutional. * 5-4 vote sustained this program. Justice Cardozo’s opinion declared that the program was entirely voluntary and, in fact, may have increased state freedom of choice
41
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer
* has acquired canonical status as the leading modern expression of contemporary constitutional understandings of executive capacity to act unilaterally * In December 1951, during the Korean War, the United Steelworkers of America gave notice of their intention to strike when the collective bargaining agreement between the steel mills and their employees expired at the end of that year * In April 1952 the union called for a strike. President Truman responded with an executive order directing the Secretary of Commerce to take control of the steel mills and keep them operational, arguing that the war effort was at stake. * Secretary of Commerce took control of the mills
42
United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation
* Source of the “sole organ” doctrine. Declaring that the president was the “sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.” * 1934 congressional resolution authorizing the president, at his discretion, to prohibit or regulate arms sales to Bolivia and Paraguay, which were engaged in a border war is the issue at hand. * President Roosevelt immediately issued a proclamation barring the arms sales. The president revoked the order in November 1935. The defendant was indicted in federal district court for violating the arms embargo during the several months that it was in effect. * SC granted the president broad discretion in foreign affairs
43
Lochner Era
a. Period in American history in which a national supreme court tended to strike down state laws b. Algier v. Louisiana (1897) – West Coast Hotel Company v. Perish c. Interested in protecting the political community and then as much as possible property
44
Nondelegation of Legislative Powers
a. It is congress’ duty to define the outer limits of what the legislation allows i. Can allow the executive branch to work the details out
45
Legal Positivism
manmade law the only standard v. Natural law/right—nature a transcendent Standard. Law wholly constructed, mechanical unity the important criterion. Civil law Susceptible of being judged by a criterion of human nature outside its constructed character
46
Standing
Flast v. Cohen lowered the bar for standing to make it easier for taxpayers to sue * If congress does something under the taxing and spending power, then being a taxpayer is sufficient and * The violation must be a violation of the taxing and spending power
47
Political Questions since Baker v. Carr
Some questions are of a political nature and are not justiciable Retreats from the political questions doctrine
48
Substantive Due Process
theories of law through which courts enforce limits on legislative and executive powers and authority.
49
Incorporation of the Bill of Rights
a. Allows for a lot less diversity in the states b. Gives the national government power over the states
50
Justice Jackson's three part test in Youngstown
1. President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization of Congress his authoirty is at its maximum 2. When acting in absence of these authorizations he relies on his independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and congress may have concurrent authority 3. When President takes measures incompatible with authorities of Congress his power is at its lowest ebb