The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was an effort of the Post-Civil War Congresses to enforce civil rights throughout the United States. It was a part of the Reconstructionists to eliminate racial discrimination throughout the United States and this Act was one form to attempt to accomplish this. They took...

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Those words make up the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Those are the words our country's founding fathers wrote when the United Sta...

The Amistad Conflict In January 1839, fifty-three African natives were kidnapped from eastern Africa and sold into the Spanish slave trade. They were then placed aboard a Spanish slave ship bound for Havana, Cuba. Once in Havana, the Africans were classified as native Cuban slaves and purchased...

Government, one of the most important factors in our life, is very complicated. After I have studied the American government, I find out that the American government is the most perfect and democratic government in the world. The government is doing their jobs in the best interest of people, to pr...

Saint Clair Adams had been hired as a sales counselor by Circuit City Stores, Inc., in California. As a condition of employment, he was required to sign an agreement that any disputes that arose between Adams and his employer would be settled by arbitration. Despite that, Adams sued Circu...

There have been many attempts to look at the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and claim it was erroneous in some respect. One of the most often used is the social policy' argument. Some constitutional scholars believe that the Supreme Court went too far in the decision, ...

James Madison once said, "A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives. A popular government without the means of acquiring information is a prologue to a tragedy." It is because I agree with Madison that I stand in strong affirmation ...

Drug Testing in Schools According to a study conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, among the graduating class of 1997, 54.3 percent of students had used an illicit drug by the time they reached their senior year of high school; a dramatic increase from 40.7 percen...

Everyday we attempt to influence others through many different methods. We may speak in a certain tone or use certain "catch" phrases to manipulate people. Most of the time it isn't even a conscious action but it just happens naturally. Body language and gestures are also methods ...

The War Over Abortion One of the most debated topics in the history of American politics is the issue of abortion. There are many issues that are brought forth when arguing over the topic of abortion. In 1973, there was a Supreme Court decision, Roe vs. Wade that ruled that abortion was to be le...

Tushnet's A Court Divided Tushnet (2005) takes an insightful look into the current Supreme Court and what it means for the future in his work entitled A Court Divided. Much has been discussed about the Court, particularly since the 2000 election ended up being referred to the judicial branch of...

Part I: Research On February 28 and March 1, 1966, the case of Miranda v. Arizona was argued in the Supreme Court, and was decided on June 13, 1966. The issue in question was "Does the police practice of interrogating individuals without notifying them of their right to counsel and their prot...

On November 7, 2000, American voters went to the polls to elect the 43rd president of the United States. Ritualistically, the nation watched that evening for the election returns. The tallies for Democrat Albert Gore and Republican George W. Bush teetered in the makings of a dead heat. It soon be...

Is executing the mentally retarded Unconstitutional? Is sentencing execution upon a mentally retarded individual unconstitutional? This is a question that has recently been answered by the United States Supreme Court. According to Justice John Paul Stevens executing the mentally retarded is unc...

Gun control is a very controversial, complicated, and delicate subject, because it affects a large amount of people in our society, and is full of moral and legal arguments which all must be heard. There are two really strong positions on gun control, pro and con. But views on gun control aren¡t...

Flag Desecration For many Americans the flag of the United States has been a symbol of freedom. However political turmoil and involvement in foreign wars has led to a new form of protest, protected under the first amendment of the Constitution-flag burning. Citizenship in America is not easy. A...

Introduction: On October 31st, 1963, in Cleveland, Ohio, a police officer named Martin McFadden observed two men standing outside a storefront. He watched one of the men walk down the street pausing to look in a store window. At then end of the street the man turned around and proceeded to walk back...

The Dred Scott Case had a huge impact on the United States as it is today. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments have called it the worst Supreme Court decision ever rendered and was later overturned. The Dred Scott Decision was a key case regarding the issue of slavery; the case started as a s...

Dred Scott was the name of an African-American slave. He was taken by his master, an officer in the U.S. Army, from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois and then to the free territory of Wisconsin. He lived on free soil for a long period of time. When the Army ordered his ...

There is a growing trend in America today that something drastically needs to be changed in our school system. The public is scared to send their children to a place where they could potentially be shot, stabbed, beaten, or be subjected to drugs on any given day. The morals of this country's youth ...

The line item veto came into effect January 1st, 1997 after being passed in an overwhelmingly Republican House, and the Senate, (with many objections by Senator Robert Byrd). However, the republican bill did not live for long, although it took a very long time to pass it, it was struck down in 1998 ...

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America reads: " Congress shall make on law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This amendment is commonly called the Establishment Clause. It forms the foundation of the ...

Baker v. Carr (1962) Except for, arguably, Brown v. Board of Education, Baker v. Carr (1962) "...was one of the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren's most important decisions." (http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=B005). The landmark ruling put int...

One of the most difficult issues modern American universities have had to grapple with is the issue of fairness in the wake of the historic discrimination against minorities in the United States. To do so, the University of Michigan's University Office of Undergraduate Admissions (OUA) put for...

The Jane Hodgson v Minnesota case revolved around a State law whereby a woman below 18 could not obtain an abortion until 48 hours after her parents had been notified (Legal Information Institute 1990). Exceptions were if the woman was a victim of family abuse or neglect; a court of compet...