Case Summary

This case involved the Treaty of Paris, which established peace in 1783. A Virginian owed a debt to a British subject. A Virginia law provided for the confiscation of such debts on the ground the the debt was owed to an alien enemy. The British subject (actually, his administrator) sued in a federal court to recover on the bond. The administrator argued that the Treaty of Paris ensured the collection of such debts.

Question(s)

Does the Treaty of Paris override an otherwise valid state law?

Answer(s)

Four of the five justices wrote opinions. It was the practice of that time for the Court to issue opinions one after another, and there was no "opinion for the Court." Collectively, the justices held that federal courts had the power to determine the constitutionality of state laws. They invalidated the Virginia law under the supremacy clause and, in the words of a distinguished scholar of the period, "established for all time [the Supreme Court's] power of judicial review of state laws."

See: The Oyez Project, Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. 199 (1796)

Case Summary

In December 1916, the United States and Great Britain entered into a treaty to protect a number of migratory birds in the U.S. and Canada. Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918 in order to facilitate enforcement of the treaty. When Ray P. Holland, the U.S. Game Warden, threatened to arrest citizens of Missouri for violating the act, the state of Missouri challenged the treaty.

Question(s)

Did the treaty infringe upon rights reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment?

Answer(s)

No. In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that the national interest in protecting the wildlife could be protected only by national action. The Court noted that the birds the government sought to protect had no permanent habitats within individual states and argued that "but for the treaty and the statute there soon might be no birds for any powers to deal with." The Court thus upheld the exercise of the treaty power and thus found no violation of the Tenth Amendment.

See: The Oyez Project, Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 (1920)

Case Summary

In 1996, the Massachusetts Burma Law, which restricted state entities from buying goods or services from companies doing business with Burma, was passed. Afterwards, Congress also imposed mandatory and conditional sanctions on Burma. Businesses with ties to Burma landed on Massachusetts' "restricted trade" list. The list came to include 34 members of the National Foreign Trade Council (Council), a non-profit advocate for American companies that do business abroad. The Council filed suit against Stephen Crosby, the Massachusetts Secretary of Administration and Finance, and other state officials in federal court, claiming that the state act unconstitutionally infringes on the federal foreign affairs power, violates the Foreign Commerce Clause, and is preempted by the Federal Burma Law. The district court permanently barred enforcement of the state act, and the appellate court affirmed. The court also found that the Massachusetts Burma Law violated the Supremacy Clause because the state was acting in an area of unique federal concern, foreign policy, through a balanced, tailored approach.

Question(s)

Is the Massachusetts Burma Law, which restricts the authority of its agencies to purchase goods or services from companies doing business with Burma, unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause?

Answer(s)

Yes. In a opinion delivered by Justice David H. Souter, the Court held that "the state Act is preempted, and its application unconstitutional, under the Supremacy Clause." Justice Souter wrote for the Court that Massachusetts's law created an obstacle to the President's discretion to control economic sanctions against Burma, interfered with Congress's intention to limit economic pressure against the Burmese Government, and was at odds with the President's authority to speak for the United States among the world's nations to develop a comprehensive, multilateral Burma strategy. Therefore, the Massachusetts Burma Law "is invalid under the Supremacy Clause...owing to its threat of frustrating federal statutory objectives."

See: The Oyez Project, Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S. 363 (2000)

Case Summary

Christopher Simmons was sentenced to death in 1993, when he was only 17. A series of appeals to state and federal courts lasted until 2002, but each appeal was rejected. Then, in 2002, the Missouri Supreme Court suspended Simmon's execution while the U.S. Supreme Court decided Atkins v. Virginia, a case that dealt with the execution of the mentally ill. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the mentally ill violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment because a majority of Americans found it cruel and unusual, the Missouri Supreme Court decided to reconsider Simmons' case. Using the reasoning from the Atkins case, the Missouri court decided, 6-to-3, that the U.S. Supreme Court's 1989 decision in Stanford v. Kentucky, which held that executing minors was not unconstitutional, was no longer valid. The opinion in Stanford v. Kentucky had relied on a finding that a majority of Americans did not consider the execution of minors to be cruel and unusual. The Missouri court, citing numerous laws passed since 1989 that limited the scope of the death penalty, held that national opinion had changed. Finding that a majority of Americans were now opposed to the execution of minors, the court held that such executions were now unconstitutional. On appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the government argued that allowing a state court to overturn a Supreme Court decision by looking at ""evolving standards"" would be dangerous, because state courts could just as easily decide that executions prohibited by the Supreme Court (such as the execution of the mentally ill in Atkins v. Virginia) were now permissible due to a change in the beliefs of the American people.

Question(s)

Does the execution of minors violate the prohibition of ""cruel and unusual punishment"" found in the Eighth Amendment and applied to the states through the incorporation doctrine of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Answer(s)

Yes. In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court ruled that standards of decency have evolved so that executing minors is ""cruel and unusual punishment"" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The majority cited a consensus against the juvenile death penalty among state legislatures, and its own determination that the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for minors. Finally the Court pointed to ""overwhelming"" international opinion against the juvenile death penalty. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Clarence Thomas all dissented.

See: The Oyez Project, Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties standardizes conventional understandings of the making and enforcement of treaties between nations. It was adopted by the United Nations in 1969, went into effect in 1980 and, as of 2009, has been ratified by 110 states.

Access the Material

Jefferson's message to Congress informing them that his authority was limited because of lack of a declaration of war.

Access the Material

The 2005 debate between Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer largely centered around the examination of foreign case law in interpreting U.S. cases. Scalia argued that the U.S. should operate solely upon its own morality and history where Breyer said that cases of international scope have increasingly been seen on the Supreme Court's docket.

Access the Material

In Hamilton's response to Jefferson's message to Congress on Dec. 17, 1801, he criticizes not only the president's delivery of a message, rather than a speech to Congress, but the requirement of Congressional approval to declare war.

Access the Material

The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Greek historian Thucydides in 431 BCE. The work discusses Athenian imperialism as a major cause of the war, and shows the deleterious effects of the city-state's greatest imperial overreach. President Wilson read the book en route to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and used its lessons to guide his strategy in negotiations with Germany.

Access the Material

From Wikipedia: The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. policy introduced on December 2, 1823, which said that further efforts by European governments to colonize land or interfere with states in the Americas would be viewed by the United States as acts of aggression requiring U.S. intervention. In return, the United States would not interfere with existing European colonies nor in the internal concerns of European countries. The Doctrine was issued at the time when many Latin American countries were on the verge of becoming independent from Spain, and the United States, reflecting concerns echoed by Great Britain, hoped to avoid having any European power take Spain's colonies.

Access the Material

From Wikipedia: The Atlantic Charter was the blueprint for the world after World War II, and is the foundation for many of the international treaties and organizations that currently shape the world, including the UN and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Access the Material

The Marshall Plan, officially the European Recovery Program, was the U.S. policy of granting large amounts of aid to western European countries following World War II, both to aid in postwar economic recovery and to create an anticommunist bloc by reducing the political and social instability Secretary of State Marshall believed to be caused by economic instability. He delivered this address, primarily aimed at Europeans, to a graduating class at Harvard University.

Access the Material

Detente with the USSR policy from 1969-1980.

Access the Material

Federalist No. 43, written by James Madison and titled, ""The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered," continues Federalist No. 42 on ratification. Along with specific concerns, Madison argued that a higher form of government was necessary to provide unity between states beyond the level of mere treaties between individual sovereigns.

Access the Material

The supreme law of the United States that provides the framework for the government. The Constitution outlines the nation's institutions of government and the most important rights of the people. The document was created in 1787 during the Philadelphia Convention. The government created by the Constitution took effect on March 4, 1789.

Access the Material

From Wikipedia: The Prince is a political treatise by the Italian public servant and political theorist Niccolo Machiavelli. It was originally written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. The Prince was one of the first works of modern philosophy, in which pragmatic ends, opposed to teleological concepts, are the purpose. The treatise is not representative of the work published during his lifetime, but it is the most remembered, and the work responsible for bringing "Machiavellian" into wide usage as a pejorative term.

Access the Material

From Wikipedia: The Truman Doctrine is a set of principles of U.S. foreign policy outlined in a March 12, 1947 speech to Congress by President Harry S Truman. Truman declared that the United States, as ""leader of the free world"", must support democracy worldwide and fight against communism. The approach was conceived with the help of George Marshall and Dean Acheson, two influential associates. The Truman Doctrine represented one aspect of containment policy, along with the Marshall Plan. The declaration of the Truman Doctrine served to inhibit the formation of coalition governments that included communist elements.

Access the Material