Case Summary

In September 1831, Samuel A. Worcester and several others, all non-Native Americans, were indicted in the Gwinnett county supreme court in Georgia for "residing within the limits of the Cherokee nation without a license" and "without having taken the oath to support and defend the constitution and laws of the state of Georgia." They were indicted under an 1830 act of the Georgia legislature titled, "an act to prevent the exercise of assumed and arbitrary power by all persons, under pretext of authority from the Cherokee Indians." Worcester argued that the state could not maintain the prosecution because the statute violated the Constitution, treaties between the United States and the Cherokee nation, and an act of Congress titled, "an act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes." Worcester was convicted and sentenced to "hard labour in the penitentiary for four years."

Question(s)

Does the state of Georgia have the authority to regulate interactions between citizens of its state and members of the Cherokee Nation?

Answer(s)

No. In an opinion delivered by Chief Justice John Marshall, the Court held that the Georgia act under which Worcester was prosecuted violated the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States. Noting that the "treaties and laws of the United States contemplate the Indian territory as completely separated from that of the states; and provide that all intercourse with them shall be carried on exclusively by the government of the union," Chief Justice Marshall argued, "The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States." The Georgia act thus interfered with the federal government's authority and was unconstitutional. Justice Henry Baldwin dissented for procedural reasons and on the merits.

See: The Oyez Project, Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832)

Case Summary

On October 15, 1872, Virginia Minor applied to register to vote in Missouri. The registrar, Reese Happersett, turned down the application, because the Missouri state constitution read: "Every male citizen of the United States shall be entitled to vote." Mrs. Minor sued in Missouri state court, claiming her rights were violated on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question(s)

Does the Fourteenth Amendment protect the voting rights of women?

Answer(s)

No. In a unanimous opinion the court held that while women were citizens of the United States, and were, even prior to the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, voting rights were not a "necessary privilege and immunity" to which all citizens are entitled.

See: 88 U.S. 162 (Wall.)

Case Summary

The Chinese Exclusion Act imposed imprisonment at hard labor and deportation to Chinese persons convicted of unlawful entry to or presence in the United States. Wong Wing was charged under the act. A commissioner of the circuit court (who was not a judge) found that Wong Wing was an unlawful alien and sentenced him to 60 days at hard labor followed by deportation to China. Wong Wing sought a writ of habeas corpus, but it was denied. He appealed to the Supreme Court.

Question(s)

Does penalty of imprisonment at hard labor and deportation without a jury trial constitute a violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments?

Answer(s)

Yes; consequently, the imprisonment provisions of the act are void. Congress may deport without a jury trial, but imprisonment at hard labor is an infamous offense calling for judicial trial to establish the guilt of the accused. "It is not consistent with our theory of government that the legislature should, after having defined an offense as an infamous crime, find the fact of guilt and adjudge the punishment by one of its own agents."

See: The Oyez Project, Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228 (1896)

Case Summary

The Chinese Exclusion Acts denied citizenship to Chinese immigrants. Moreover, by treaty no Chinese subject in the United States could become a naturalized citizen. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco. At age 21, he returned to China to visit his parents who had previously resided in the United States for 20 years. When he returned to the United States, Wong was denied entry on the ground that he was not a citizen.

Question(s)

Could the government deny naturalization to persons born in the United States in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Answer(s)

No. The government could not deny naturalization to anyone born in the United States. To reach this conclusion, Justice Gray's tedious majority opinion managed to traverse much of western civilization.

See: The Oyez Project, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)

Case Summary

In 1944, United States Army private Albert Trop escaped from a military stockade at Casablanca, Morocco, following his confinement for a disciplinary violation. A day later, Trop willingly surrendered to an army truck headed back to Casablanca. Despite testifying that he "decided to return to the stockade" when he was picked up, a general court martial convicted Trop of desertion and sentenced him to three years at hard labor, loss of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. In 1952, Trop applied for a passport. His application was rejected under Section 401(g) of the amended 1940 Nationality Act, on the ground that he lost his citizenship due to his conviction and dishonorable discharge for wartime desertion. After failing to obtain a declaratory judgment that he was a U.S. citizen, from both a district and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Trop appealed to the Supreme Court.

Question(s)

Did Section 401(g) of the amended 1940 Nationality Act (the "Act") allow for an unconstitutional punishment by authorizing the expatriation of a citizen convicted of wartime desertion?

Answer(s)

Yes. After finding that Section 401(g) of the amended Act was penal in nature, since it punished convicted deserters with denationalization, the Court held that involuntary expatriation was barred by the Eighth Amendment as a cruel and unusual penal remedy. Citizenship, the Court stated, is not a license that expires upon misbehavior. Rather, it can only be voluntarily renounced by express language and, or, conduct. Since Trop did not involve himself in any way with a foreign state, so as to demonstrate disloyalty to the United States, his court martial conviction of desertion did not justify his forced expatriation.

See: The Oyez Project, Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958)

Case Summary

Rockwell Kent applied for and was refused a passport to visit England. In addition to informing him that his application refusal rested on his Communist Party affiliations, the Passport Office director told Kent that in order for a passport to be issued a hearing would be necessary. The director instructed Kent to submit an affidavit as to whether he was a current or past Communist. Upon the advice of his lawyer, Kent refused to sign the affidavit but did participate in a hearing at which he was once more asked to sign an affidavit concerning his Communist affiliations. When he refused the affidavit, the Passport Department advised Kent that no further action would be taken on his passport request until he satisfied the affidavit requirement. On appeal from consecutive adverse rulings in both district and appellate court, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Kent's case.

Question(s)

Could the executive branch's Passport Department defer or refuse the issuance of passports to individuals suspected of being Communists or of traveling abroad to further Communist causes?

Answer(s)

No. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court held that the right to travel is an inherent element of "liberty" that cannot be denied to American citizens. Although the Executive may regulate the travel practices of citizens, by requiring them to obtain valid passports, it may not condition the fulfillment of such requirements with the imposition of rules that abridge basic constitutional notions of liberty, assembly, association, and personal autonomy.

See: The Oyez Project, Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958)

Case Summary

A revision to the Texas education laws in 1975 allowed the state to withhold from local school districts state funds for educating children of illegal aliens. This case was decided together with Texas v. Certain Named and Unnamed Alien Child.

Question(s)

Did the law violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Answer(s)

Yes. The Court reasoned that illegal aliens and their children, though not citizens of the United States or Texas, are people "in any ordinary sense of the term" and, therefore, are afforded Fourteenth Amendment protections. Since the state law severely disadvantaged the children of illegal aliens, by denying them the right to an education, and because Texas could not prove that the regulation was needed to serve a "compelling state interest," the Court struck down the law.

See: The Oyez Project, Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982)

Case Summary

In 2005, the Indiana legislature passed a law requiring all voters who cast a ballot in person to present a photo I.D. issued by the United States or the state of Indiana. Plaintiffs including the local Democratic Party and interest groups representing minority and elderly citizens argued that the law constituted an undue burden on the right to vote. At trial, the plaintiffs did not produce any witnesses who claimed they would be unable to meet the law's requirements. The district court and the court of appeals both upheld the law. However, the three-judge appellate panel was deeply divided. Dissenting judge Terrence Evans claimed that the law was a thinly-veiled attempt to dampen turnout by those likely to vote for Democratic candidates.

Question(s)

Does a law that requires voters to present either a state or federal photo identification unduly burden citizens? right to vote?

Answer(s)

No. By 6-3 vote, the Court upheld the law, concluding that the photo I.D. requirement was closely related to Indiana's legitimate state interests in preventing voter fraud. The slight burden the law imposed on voters' rights did not outweigh these interests, which the Court characterized as "neutral and nondiscriminatory." Although there was no majority opinion, the Court's decision included concurring opinions written by Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia. Justices David Souter and Stephen Breyer each wrote dissenting opinions. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Justice Souter's dissent.

See: The Oyez Project, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. ___ (2008)

Aristotle's work on such topics as the political community, economics, property rights, citizenship, leadership, constitutions and the ideal state. He critiques the ideas in Plato's Republic and examines the existing thoughts and types of government, as well as discussing his notions of ideal society.

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A review of American representational government in the 1830s, focusing on the reasons for success in America versus attempts and failures in other places. The work was borne from a young Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont having been sent by the French government to study the American prison system. Their notes included other aspects of American society, including political life.

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Cicero's theories of constitutions, education, and citizenship. It is presented as a Socratic dialogue between Scipio Africanus Minor and several prominent men over three days and is Cicero's attempt to apply classic Greek ideas to his ideal of the Roman republic.

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The Articles of Confederation were, in effect, the first constitution of the United States. Drafted in 1777 by the same Continental Congress that passed the Declaration of Independence, the articles established a "firm league of friendship" between and among the 13 states and, though the states were already in cooperation via the Continental Congress, the Articles of Confederation legally bound the states together.

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From Wikipedia: The Meriam Report surveyed conditions on Indian reservations in 23 states in 1926 under Lewis Meriam for the Institute for Government Research. The report, submitted to Secretary of the Interior, Hubert Work, in 1928, The Problem of Indian Administration provided narrative and statistical criticism of the failings of the Dawes Act and would later become the basis for the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

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Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a 1693 treatise on education written by the English philosopher John Locke. For over a century, it was the most important philosophical work on education in Britain. It was translated into almost all of the major written European languages during the eighteenth century, and nearly every European writer on education after Locke, including Rousseau, acknowledged its influence.

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From Wikipedia: The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American Colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. Written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.

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From Wikipedia: Emile, or On Education was considered by Rousseau to be the "best and most important of all my writings." It is a treatise on the nature of education but also on the nature of man. It tackles fundamental political and philosophical questions about the relationship between the individual and society -- how, in particular, the individual might retain what Rousseau saw as innate human goodness while remaining part of a corrupting collectivity. Its opening sentence: "Everything is good in leaving the hands of the Creator of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man."

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