GOVERNMENT 124

These are some sample hour exam questions. Students will be asked to decide whether each statement is True, False, or Partly True, and then state, in not more than one page for each, their reasons for thinking so.

1. In Gibbons v. Ogden, Marshall overturned a state act on the ground that the commerce clause is an exclusive grant of power to Congress.

2. The doctrine of Chisholm v. Georgia was over-ruled by later decisions of the Supreme Court.

3. The Judiciary Act of 1789 granted the federal courts power to review both state and congressional legislation.

4. Mississippi v. Johnson and Luther v. Borden rest on the same assumptions as to the limitations of the judicial power.

5. In 1819, the court held a state bankruptcy law invalid as applied to contracts made either before or after the passage of the law.

6. The interpretation of the enforcement clause in the Civil Rights cases is both historically invalid and unjustified by the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment.

7. Chief Justice Marshall would probably have approved the court's decision in the Legal Tender Cases rather than Hepburn v. Griswold.

8. In Bunting v. Oregon, the Lochner precedent was abandoned; but in Adkins v. Children's Hospital the court returned to it.

1949-50

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

GOVERNMENT 124

Please list the author and title of the book you chose for the reading period on the first page of your bluebook, and use the book, when it seems relevant, as one of your reference sources in writing the examination.

I.

(75 minutes)

write on *either* A. or B.

A. "An adequate evaluation of judicial review in America could be based on the history of the Fourteenth Amendment alone. The Supreme Court's decisions in this field provide a perfect arsenal of ammunition for both its critics and defenders."

B. "Someone has remarked that Supreme Court justices are merely politicians in judicial robes; and all the great movements in commerce clause doctrine have served to reconfirm this truism."

II.

(60 minutes)

Write on *two* questions.

A. "However the Marshall and Taney courts may have differed on other counts, they agreed in claiming a broad range of power for the federal judiciary."

B. "War nullifies judicial restraints on government even in America ✓ where the constitution is said to reign supreme."

C. "By exalting freedom of expression to the status of an absolute, the Supreme Court has gravely hampered government in carrying out its legitimate tasks.

D. "On several occasions in its history, the Supreme Court has seriously undermined its own prestige by attempting to decide questions too weighty and controversial for judicial arbitrament."

III.

(45 minutes)

Write on *six* questions.

A. "The decisions of the Supreme Court have at last made it clear that 'white primaries' cannot claim the sanction of the Constitution of the United States."

B. "Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (The Child Labor Tax Case, 1922) was decided in the only way that was consistent with previous decisions in the field."

C. "In Missouri ex. rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938), the Supreme Court held that Missouri could satisfy the 'separate but equal accommodation' requirement by sending a negro to the law school of another state."

D. "In West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937), the long-lived doctrine of Lochner v. N.Y. (1905) was at last abandoned."

E. "The doctrine of Collector v. Day (1871) was made inevitable by the Supreme Court's decision in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)."

•F. "Dayton-Goose Creek Ry. v. U.S. (1924) is hard to reconcile with Carter v. Carter Coal Co. (1936)."

G. "Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) is chiefly significant because of the sharp limitations it imposed on the power of the states to regulate commerce."

H. "The decision in McCollum v. Board of Education (1948) is inconsistent with Everson v. Board of Education (1947)."

Palluck

Final. January, 1950.

21

GOVERNMENT 124

Reading Period Assignment

Fall Term, 1949-50

Read *one* of the following:

1. Biography

Lerner, Max. The Mind and Faith of Justice Holmes, pp. xix-xlix, 28-43, 127-252, 289-359, 403-437

Beveridge, A. J. Life of John Marshall, vol. 4, chs. 2,4,5,6,9

2. Post-Bellum Constitutional Law

Twiss, Ben. Lawyers and the Constitution. (complete)

3. The Old Court and Judicial Review in the 20th Century

Corwin, E. S., The Twilight of the Supreme Court (complete)

4. The New Deal

Jackson, R. H., The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy (complete)

5. Modern Constitutional Law

Pritchett, C. H., The Roosevelt Court. (complete, omitting ch. 2 and 7)

6. The Judicial Process

Cardozo, B. N., The Nature of the Judicial Process

Gov 124-2

IV. Civil War and Reconstruction (Week beginning Oct. 17)

Kelly and Harbison, *The American Constitution*, Ch. 16

Warren, *The Supreme Court in United States History*, Ch. 28

Cases:

Ex Parte Milligan (1866), 542

Cummings v. Missouri (1867), 784

Legal Tender Cases (1871), 444

Mississippi v. Johnson (1867), 752

V. Conservatism, the Court, and the Fourteenth Amendment (Week beginning Oct. 24)

Max Lerner, "The Supreme Court and American Capitalism,"
42 Yale Law Journal, 668 (1933); also in *Selected Essays on Constitutional Law*, II, 154-184, and in *Ideas are Weapons*, 425.

Wright, *The Contract Clause*, Chs. IV, XII

R. B. Twiss, *Lawyers and the Constitution*, Ch. VI

Cases:

Civil Rights Cases (1883), 595

Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), 584

Munn v. Illinois (1877), 916

Lochner v. New York (1905), 885

VI. Due Process and the Police Power (Week beginning Oct. 31)

Wright, *Growth of Constitutional Law*, pp. 95-107, Ch. VIII

Cases:

Bunting v. Oregon (1917), 894

Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923), 897

Nebbia v. New York (1934), 949

Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), 979

VII. Civil Liberties in Transition (Week beginning Nov. 7)

4. Chafee, *Free Speech in the United States* (1941)
   Ch. I, pp. 195-215, Ch. XI.

Cases:

Schenck v. United States (1919), 507

Hurtado v. California (1884), 840

Gitlow v. New York (1925), 958

Near v. Minnesota (1931), 964

Powell v. Alabama (1932), 851

Palko v. Connecticut (1937), 858

Gov 124-4

## XII. Civil Liberties in Peace and War (Week beginning Dec. 12)

### Chafee, Free Speech in the United States, ch. XII

#### Cases:

- Missouri ex. rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938), 1009

- United States v. Classic (1941), 113

- Smith v. Allwright (1944), Supplement 15

- Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), Supplement 229

- Duncan v. Kahanamoku (1946), Supplement 97

- Hartzel v. United States (1944), Supplement 55

## XIII. Democracy and Judicial Review

### Chafee, Free Speech in the United States, Chs. XIV, XV

#### Cases:

- Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), Supplement 983

- Everson v. Board of Education (1947), 195. Supplement

- Bridges v. California (1941), 180. Supplement

- A.F.L. v. Swing (1941), 975

- Saia v. New York (1948), 187. Supplement

- Fay v. New York (1947), 159. Supplement

- McCollum v. Board of Education (1948) 211. Supplement

Reading period assignment to be announced.