Roger Taney, Chief Justice (1836-1864)
Slavery and the Constitutional Crisis of the 1850s
Roger Taney, Chief Justice (1836-1864)
| This class will be the first of two on the constitutional causes and effects of the Civil War. Were there ways in which the constitutional crisis that was the Civil War could have been avoided? |
READINGS
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Hall, Major Problems, chapter 11. |
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Dred Scott decision (1857) |
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Crittenden compromise (1860) |
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South Carolina: statement of secession (1860) |
STUDY QUESTIONS
| 1.) Could the Civil War have been avoided within the constitutional system? |
| 2.) If they had been adopted, what would have been the most important change to the structure of American government brought about by the Crittenden amendments? |
| 3.) Was the Supreme Court of the late 1850s totally politicized, or do you still view it as primarily a legal body? |