The Fourteenth Amendment and the Rights Revolution
INFORMAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT THE SUPREME COURT AND THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT: FIRST INTERPRETATIONS Readings: The 3 U. S. Supreme Court cases to which I have made links on the schedule page (Bradwell, Minor, and Plessy). And, find in Wilson Library and read at least one of the following articles: Ellen Carol DuBois, "Taking the Law into Our Own Hands: Bradwell, Minor & Suffrage Militance in the 1870s," in Visible Women ed. by Nancy Hewitt & Suzanne Lebsock (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990) or in Ellen Carol DuBois, Woman Suffrage & Women's Rights (New York: New York University Press, 1998). (Please read and or photocopy, but don't check the book out so others can have access to it!) Ellen Carol DuBois, "Outgrowing the Compact of the Fathers: Equal Rights, Woman Suffrage, and the United States Constitution, 1820-1878," Journal of American History 74 (1987): 836-862. Mark Elliott, "Race, Color Blindness, and the Democratic Public: Albion W. Tourgee's Radical Principles in Plessy v. Ferguson," Journal of Southern History 67 (2001): 287-330. Barbara Y. Welke, "When All the Women Were White, and All the Blacks Were Men: Gender, Class, Race, and the Road to Plessy, 1855-1914," Law and History Review 13 (1995): 261-316 (I will post a couple of copies of this article outside my office door --752 SST -- you can also get the Law and History Review at the Law Library). Writing: Your informal writing should include the following 3 parts: 1. Relate what specifically interested or surprised you in the Supreme Court's opinion in the three cases. 2. Provide a brief summary of the article you read and how it shaped your understanding of the particular case to which it most closely related. 3. List at least three questions/points/ideas that you would like to discuss in class relating to the cases. Your questions may relate the cases to one another or be about a specific case. You must have at least one question relating to each case. For at least your first three questions, you must also include a sentence or two explanation of why you're interested in the particular question. Purpose: The goals of this writing assignment are (1) to introduce you to some of the most important early cases decided by the Supreme Court interpreting the 14th Amendment, as well as the broader context of those interpretations; (2) to get you thinking about possible approaches to take in your research paper by giving you models of other articles; and (3) to give you a chance to put to use your new library skills! Due:
Friday Oct. 10 (beginning of class) As usual, can be typed or handwritten.
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