American Legal
History
AMH 3558, Sections
5309, 5517, 5519, 5522, 5530, 5536, 5538, 5540
Elizabeth Dale
Keene Flint Hall
Office hours: Wednesday 9-11:30MA
Thursday 1:30-3PM
edale@history.ufl.edu
Lecture meets
Thursday, periods 4-5
Discussion
sections meet Tuesdays
Books: Brewer, By Birth or Consent
Farber,
Lincoln’s Constitution
Boyle, Arc
of Justice
Tushnet,
NAACP Strategy
Hall,
Magic Mirror
Assignments and grading:
First hour exam: 15% of grade
Paper assignment: 25% of grade
Second hour exam: 25% of grade
Final exam: 25% of
grade
Attendance and participation: 10% of grade
First week:
Thursday, August 24:
Introduction to the course
Second week,
Tuesday,
August 29: Michael Grossberg, “Social History Update: ‘Fighting Faiths” and the
Challenges of Legal History,” Journal of Social History 25 (Fall 1991):
191-202.
Thursday, August 31: English/European
background
Third week
Tuesday, Sept 5: Magna Charta
Thursday, Sept 7: Seventeenth
Century
Winthrop’s Model of
Christian Charity
Fourth week
Tuesday,
Sept 12: Laws
and Liberties
Thursday,
Sept 14: Eighteenth Century
Declaration of
Independence (1776)
Constitution of
Virginia (1776)
Constitution of
Delaware (1776)
Fifth week
Tuesday,
Sept 19: Constitution
of the United States (1787)
Thursday,
Sept 21: Brewer, By Birth or Consent
Sixth week
Tuesday,
Sept 26: First hour exam (covers material through Brewer reading)
Thursday,
Sept 28: Law and the Early Economy,
Business
Enfield Toll Bridge v.
Connecticut River (1828)
Seventh week
Tuesday,
Oct 3: Charles
River Bridge Case
Thursday,
Oct 5: Law and the Early Economy, People
Farwell v. Boston and Worcester
Railroad (1842)
Eighth week
Tuesday,
Oct 10: State v. Mann; Ponton v. Wilmington Railroad
(1858)
Thursday,
Oct 12: Dred
Scott case (Justice Taney opinion)
****paper assignment handed
out, due Oct 26 at start of class****
exam writing schematic, exam writing example, sample A exam
Ninth week
Tuesday,
Oct 17: Dred
Scott case (Justice Curtis dissent)
Thursday,
Oct 19: Farber, Lincoln’s Constitution
Tenth week
Tuesday,
Oct 24: Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments
Thursday,
Oct 26: Law and the Status of Minorities
**** paper due
at start of class ****
Eleventh week
Tuesday,
Oct 31: Baylies v. Curry I;
Baylies v. Curry II
Thursday,
Nov 2: Women and the law at the turn of the century
Twelfth week
Tuesday,
Nov 7: Lochner v. New York
(1905)
Thursday,
Nov 9: Changing the constitutional landscape
West Coast
Hotel v. Parrish (1937)
Thirteenth week
Tuesday, Nov
14: second hour exam (covers material from Dred Scott through Carolene
Products)
Thursday,
Nov 16: Boyle, Arc of Justice
Fourteenth week
Tuesday,
Nov 21: Brown v. Board
of Education (1954)
Thursday,
Nov 23: NO CLASS, Thanksgiving
Fifteenth week
Tuesday,
Nov 28: Tushnet, NAACP Legal Strategy
****take home
final exam questions available****
Thursday,
Nov 30:
Griswold v.
Connecticut (1965)
Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania
v. Casey (1992)
Sixteenth week
Tuesday,
Dec 5: review sessions
Thursday,
Dec 9: no classes
Finals week
EXAMS
DUE Monday, Dec 11, by noon