Supreme Decisions: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact covers twenty-three Supreme Court cases that have shaped American constitutional law. Interpretive chapters shed light on the nuances of each case, the individuals involved, and the social, political, and cultural context at that particular moment in history.

Table of Contents

• Reviewer Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• To 1896
• Chapter one The Case of the Disappointed Office-Seeker: Marbury v. Madison (1803)
• The Judiciary Act of 1801 and the Midnight Judges
• William Marbury
• The First Step—Repeal of the 1801 Judiciary Act
• Marbury v. Madison
• The Politics and Logic of Marshall’s Opinion
• The Republicans Continue Their Attack
• The Impeachment of Justice Chase
• Defining Treason
• Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter two The Case of the Larcenous Cashier: M’Culloch v. Maryland (1819)
• Interpreting the Constitution: Jefferson versus Hamilton
• James McCulloh—Cashier Extraordinaire
• Arguments before the Court
• Decision
• The States’ Rights Attack
• John Marshall’s Defense
• Citizen McCulloh
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter three The Case of the Rival Steamboat Operators: Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
• Mr. Fulton’s Steamboat
• The Steamboat Monopoly
• Enter Gibbons and Ogden
• Creating a Question for the Federal Courts
• Arguing before the Supreme Court
• The Decision
• The Legacy of the Case
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter four The Case of the Missionary to the Cherokee: Worcester v. Georgia (1832)
• Setting the Stage
• Taking Indian Land
• Challenging Georgia Law in the Supreme Court
• Samuel Worcester Goes to Georgia
• The Georgia Law before the Supreme Court
• The Failure of Law and a Political Compromise
• Cherokee Removal
• Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter five The Case of the Zealous Slave Catcher: Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)
• The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
• Personal Liberty Laws
• Edward Prigg and Margaret Morgan
• The Supreme Court Rules
• After Prigg: George Latimer
• The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter six The Case of the Slave Who Would Be Free: Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
• Dred Scott and His Travels
• The Case in the Missouri State Courts
• The Growing Storm over Slavery
• The Compromise of 1850
• Dred Scott in the Missouri Supreme Court
• A Diversity Case—or Not
• Before the Supreme Court
• "The Self-Inflicted Wound"
• Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter seven The Case of the Antiwar Agitator: Ex parte Milligan (1866)
• The Making of a Copperhead
• Opposing the War
• Military Trial
• Ex parte Merryman
• Ex parte Vallandigham
• Arguing the Case
• The Court’s Decision
• Milligan in History
• Milligan after the Case
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter eight The Case of the New Orleans Butchers: The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)
• A Simple Health Regulation in an Unhealthy City
• The Butchers Fight Back
• Defining Rights
• In the Louisiana Courts
• Justice Joseph Bradley, on Circuit
• Before the U.S. Supreme Court
• A Closely Divided Court Decides
• Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter nine The Case of the Woman Who Wanted to Be a Lawyer: Bradwell v. Illinois (1873)
• Myra Bradwell
• The Chicago Legal News
• The Nascent Women’s Movement
• A History of Legal Discrimination
• Small Doors in the Wall
• A Person of Good Character—but Not Eligible
• On Appeal to the Supreme Court
• The Decision
• Moving On, and Triumphing
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter ten The Case of the Devout Bigamist: Reynolds v. United States (1879)
• Mormon Beliefs
• The Growing Opposition to the Faith
• George Reynolds
• The Test Case
• The Supreme Court Decides: Belief versus Practice
• Reaction to the Decision
• The Persecution and Prosecution of the Mormons
• The End of Plural Marriage
• Continuing Questions
• George Reynolds’s Last Years
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter eleven The Case of the Reluctant Strike Leader: In re Debs (1895)
• George M. Pullman and the Palace Car
• Pullman, Illinois
• Eugene Victor Debs
• The American Railway Union
• The Pullman Workers Strike
• The Boycott
• Violence
• Judge Grosscup Issues an Injunction
• The Trial of Eugene V. Debs
• The High Court Rules
• Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Since 1896
• Chapter twelve The Case of the Almost-White Traveler: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
• The Freedmen after the Civil War
• The Beginnings of Jim Crow
• Challenging the Separate Car Act
• Enter Homer Adolphe Plessy
• The Separate Car Act in the Courts
• The Supreme Court Decides
• Justice Harlan’s Dissent
• Plessy’s Bitter Fruits
• Coda
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter thirteen The Case of the Stubborn Baker: Lochner v. New York (1905)
• Industrialization and Protective Legislation
• Substantive Due Process versus the Police Power
• Bakeshops at the Turn of the Century
• Trying to Clean Up the Bakeshops
• Joseph Lochner Challenges the Law
• The Supreme Court Hands Down a Surprise Decision
• Lochner’s Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter fourteen The Case of the Gentle Anarchist: Abrams v. United States (1919)
• World War I and Speech
• Jacob Abrams Opposes the War
• Theories of Speech and the Bad Tendency
• Schenck and "Clear and Present Danger"
• Holmes Learns from His Critics
• Abrams: Fighting Faiths
• Reaction to Holmes’s Dissent: Pro and Con
• The Sad End of Jacob Abrams
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter fifteen The Case of the High-Tech Bootlegger: Olmstead v. United States (1928)
• The Road to the Noble Experiment
• Prohibition in Practice
• The Olmstead Ring in Seattle
• The Meaning of the Fourth Amendment
• Chief Justice Taft’s Opinion
• Justices Butler and Holmes Dissent
• The Brandeis Dissent and the Right of Privacy
• Roy Olmstead Reforms
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter sixteen The Four Horsemen’s Last Ride: The New Deal Cases (1930s)
• The Great Depression
• The Court and State Measures to Combat the Depression
• The New Deal Begins
• Going Off the Gold Standard
• The National Industrial Recovery Act
• The Schechter Case
• The New Deal Farm Program and the Court
• The Attack on the New Deal Continues
• The Court-Packing Plan
• Elsie Parrish Wants Her Money
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter seventeen The Case of the Conscientious Schoolchildren: The Flag-Salute Cases (1940 and 1943)
• Lillian Gobitas Acts on Her Faith
• The Witnesses in Federal Courts
• The Witnesses in the High Court: Round I
• The Violent Response to the Decision
• Expanding the Boundaries of the First Amendment
• The High Court: Round II
• Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter eighteen The Case of Too-Long-Delayed Equality: Brown v. Board of Education (1954 and 1955)
• Linda Brown and the Other Plaintiffs
• From Plessy to Brown
• The Arguments
• The Decision
• The Response
• Remedies and Brown II
• Moving—but Slowly
• Ike and Little Rock
• The Beginnings of Desegregation
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter nineteen The Case of the Robust Press: New York Times v. Sullivan (1964)
• Merton Nachman Reads the Newspaper
• The Struggle for Civil Rights in Alabama
• L. B. Sullivan and Law Enforcement in Montgomery
• The Sit-in Movement Comes to Alabama
• "Heed Their Rising Voices"
• A Brief History of Libel Law
• The Sullivan Case
• The Supreme Court and the Press Clause
• "Debate on Public Issues Should Be Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open"
• Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter twenty The Case of the Uninformed Rapist: Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
• The Victim
• Ernesto Miranda and His Confession
• The Due Process Revolution Begins: Gideon v. Wainwright
• The Fifth Amendment’s "Great Right"
• Connecting the Fifth and Sixth Amendments: Massiah
• Strengthening the Connection: Escobedo
• "You Have the Right to Remain Silent"
• The Success of Miranda
• Refining Miranda
• Miranda’s End
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter twenty one The Case That Aroused Great Passions: Roe v. Wade (1973)
• Abortion Legislation: A Brief History
• Growing Support for Abortion Rights
• Establishing the Right to Privacy
• Sarah Weddington Meets Norma McCorvey
• Jane Roe Wins Round One
• Abortion in the Supreme Court before Roe
• Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton
• The Response to the Decisions
• Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter twenty two Coming Out of the Closet and into the Courts: The Gay Rights Cases (1986–2003)
• Michael Hardwick Is Arrested
• Hardwick Goes to Court—Charting Unfamiliar Territory
• The Gay Rights Movement
• Hardwick in the Supreme Court
• The Court Tries to Find Its Way
• A Ray of Hope—Romer v. Evans
• John Geddes Lawrence Is Arrested
• The Supreme Court Decides
• The Aftermath of Lawrence
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Chapter twenty three The Constitution Besieged: The War on Terror Cases (2000s)
• Rounding Up Suspected Aliens
• Zacarias Moussaoui
• Enemy Combatants
• The Prisoners of Guantánamo
• The Supreme Court Issues a Warning
• Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
• Another Rebuke from the Court
• Aftermath
• Cases Cited
• For Further Reading
• Constitution of the United States
• Glossary