"The People vs. Eighth Amendment" The business of cruel and unusual punishment has long been juxtaposed with the discussion of the death penalty. Beginning with Adam and Eve and continuing to the present day, society has struggled with the notion of punishment. From Salem, Massachusetts...

In 1787, the fathers of our country met at the Philadelphia Convention to ratify the document that would soon be known as "The Constitution of the United States of America". This Constitution was to be the supreme law of the land. Our Constitution was set up in order to f...

What is Judicial Review? It is when the High court has to come in and review a decision that was made by the legislative or the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. It is also an option when the State courts make a ruling and it is challenged by the defendant, to seek if their ruling was ma...

There might be contentions in some sectors of the American society that putting the In God We Trust phase in U.S. currencies violates the First Amendment rights which states that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or a...

The landmark Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) settled the question of whether or not blacks and whites can receive an education integrated with or separate from each other. The case overturned the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the doctrine of "separate bu...

14th Amendment The 14th amendment provided the backbone for the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement was able to make major gains because it was able to make an argument for civil rights with the constitution on its side. The amendment insures that everyone will be treated equally. Th...

Jefferon and his people had become a political group that favored the adoption by the states of the Constitution The Federalists were conservatives; they favored a strong centralized government, encouragement of industries, attention to the needs of the great merchants and landowners, and establ...

This case focuses on the Smith Act, which was passed in the late 1940's. Under this act "It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of the overthrowing or destroying any government in the U...

One of the biggest problems when facing a new government is the economic problems. Because of the revolution, the federal government had acquired a huge debt of $54 million, including interest, not to mention that the states owed another $25 million. The United States was in need of a new financial...

In 1942, 23,000 Japanese Canadians lived on the West Coast of British Columbia. The majorities of them were Canadians by birth or naturalized citizens. While they worked as fishermen and laborers and paid their taxes, they were denied the right to vote. Thirty-five years after the first person of Ja...

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his book Why We Can't Wait, quite correctly named the civil rights struggles of the mid-twentieth century the Third American Revolution. Though it is most often attributed to the 1960s the civil rights movement found it's start in the decade befo...

Throughout the years, almost every president has changed the United States in some way. Some changed it for the better, and some changed it for the worse, but that all depends on your own personal perspectives. During Andrew Jackson's term, he managed to change the United States in many ways. The r...

Religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared...

Stepped up efforts to change the educational system. In the fall of 1950 members of the Topeka, Kansas, Chapter of National Association for the Advancement of colored people agreed to again challenge the "separate but equal" doctrine governing public education. The NAACP was eager to assis...

In 1800, President John Adams lost his bid for re-election. Thomas Jefferson was voted in for the president. Adams, being a Federalist, disagreed with the beliefs of Jefferson, a republican, and feared that he would shift the power in the government to the states. To prevent this, Adams created many...

This case is a significant part of American history when it comes to slavery. In this particular case the Mendians have won a major victory for the abolitionists in the America's at this time. It began on June 28, 1839 when Ruiz and Montez placed Mendians on board the schooner Amistad a...

In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected president of the United States. The Jacksonian Democracy, or New Democracy, was thus created. The philosophy of this new form of democracy was that whatever governing was to be done was to be done directly by the people. The Jacksonian Democrats viewed themselves ...

MICHAEL CAIN Michael Cain is an attorney for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) and he came to talk to us about the evolution of the public trust doctrine in Wisconsin dealing with navigable water and current development issues related to the public trust. The doctrine states ...

Comparing and Contrasting Yoder with Ginsburg At face value, the cases of Yoder and Ginsburg appear quite different to me. After all, one deals with an Amish parent who took her children out of highschool for religious reasons and the other case deals with a Luncheonette owner who sold a 16 y...

OUR NEW PRESIDENT The election is to close to call who would be our new president. The presidential election was one of the wildest and closest in U.S. history. On November 7, all of America was expecting a new president. It turns out that Florida had to do another recount because there had s...

Muckraking or Muck-faking Former United States president Theodore Roosevelt, first coined the term muckraking, or as referred to today "investigative reporting." The president had intended the term to be disdainful, but it became a badge of honor among journalist. Magazines began ...

Forfeiture My speach is on forfeiture. WEEEE What is Forfeiture? Thats what I'm going to tell you. Asset Forfeiture is aprocess that allows the government to take property away from people permanently, without paying for it, if the property or its owner is involved in certain criminal offenses...

One of the most controversial issues in the United States today is the issue of whether or not prayer should be allowed in public schools. In many schools around the country, prayer has already been banned in public schools. Many people have many differences on this issue. The American society consi...

Death of a Salesman: Nature of Success One of the important themes in Death of a Salesman is the nature of success. Many people believe that success is about making a lot of money. They say that with money comes happiness. However this may not always be true. In other words success is defined as t...

Returning from WWII, black Americans, just as those three decades prior, expected to find America land of equality for all people and specifically a land endowed with increased black civil rights. Although the late 1940s and 1950s are not generally considered a period of social advancement for black...