Course Details

Description:

The focus of this seminar will be federalism. Issues surrounding sovereignty have vexed the American people since at least 1765, when the English Parliament adopted the Stamp Act. The Declaration of Independence established the principle that sovereignty resides in the people. The Constitution established the principle that the people could divide their sovereignty between the states on the one hand and a national government on the other. Throughout American history issues have arisen regarding the nature of the relationship between sovereign states and the United States. Collectively, the resolution of these issues is what the law calls federalism. Federalism decisions are driven as much by cultural, social, and political forces as they are by any discernible legal doctrine. Each student will be assigned a Supreme Court case or legislative enactment to research, write about, and present to the class. The list of potential topics to be covered is in the attached sample syllabus. The focus of each paper and presentation will be the historical context in which the issue addressed arose. The student will be required to research and analyze, not only the legal context of the issue, but also to research and analyze the historical context in which the issue arose. The student’s paper will provide a historical background to the facts giving rise to the case or legislative enactment; both in terms of the specific facts in the case, as well as the larger historical context in which the specific facts arose. The paper will analyze the federalism issue both in a traditional legal way, as well as in a broader historical sense. Put differently, the paper will comment upon not only the immediate impact the decision had upon the parties, but will also address the impact it had on the states, the nation, and subsequent jurisprudence. The pedagogical approach will be similar to Professor Stein’s Great Cases class. While the course content will cover some of the same cases and concepts addressed in Professor Erbsen’s Federal & State Courts class, as well as Professor Tostrud’s Federal Jurisdiction class, the focus in this class will be on the relationship between the issues and their historical context. The question to be addressed with respect to each issue is not, what it can tell about federal jurisdiction, or procedure. Instead, the question is what it can tell about the impact of historical currents on the development of the law as it relates to federalism.