Required CASES and DOCUMENTS

Established the Supremacy of the US Constitution and federal laws over state laws

• Marbury v. Madison

• McCullouch v. Maryland

• US v. Lopez

• New York Times Co. v. United States

Congress may not use the commerce clause to make possession of a gun in a school zone a federal crime

• United States v. Lopez

• McDonald v. Chicago

• Gideon v. Wainwright

• Roe v. Wade

Extended the right to privacy to a woman's decision to have an abortion

• Roe v. Wade

• Griswold v. Connecticut

• Wisconsin v. Yoder

• McDonald v. Chicago

Race based school segregation violates the Equal Protection Clause

• Brown v. Board of Education

• Baker v. Carr

• Tinker v. Des Moines

• McCullouch v. Maryland

Opened the door to equal protection challenges to redistricting and the development of the "one person, one vote" doctrine by ruling that challenges to redistricting did not raise "political questions" that would keep federal courts from reviewing such challenges

• Baker v. Carr

• Shaw v. Reno

• Gideon v. Wainwright

• Marbury v. Madison

Legislative redistricting must be conscious of race and ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but race may not be the sole rationale behind redistricting decisions

• Baker v. Carr

• Shaw v. Reno

• Mc Donald v. Chicago

• Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Established the principle of Judicial Review empowering the Supreme Court to nullify an act of the legislative or executive branch that violates the Constitution.

• Marbury v. Madison

• McCullouch v. Maryland

• United States v. Lopez

• Brown v. Board of Education

"By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community"

• Federalist #10

• Federalist #51

• Federalist #70

• Federalist #78

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary”

• Federalist #10

• Federalist #51

• Federalist #70

• Federalist #78

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”

• Declaration of Independence

• Articles of Confederation

• U.S. Constitution

• Letter from Birmingham Jail