By: Matt Salazar, Ethyn Brambley, and Nicholas Vallerio Period: 3 Mrs. Scenna

• Federal Constitution (1787): Guides American society in law and political culture.

• Kentucky and Virginia resolutions (1788-1799): Political statements in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional.

• Tariff of 1816: First tariff passed by Congress with a function of protecting U.S. manufactured items from foreign competition.

• Second Bank of the United States chartered (1816): The Second Bank was chartered by many of the same congressmen who in 1811 had refused to renew the charter of the original Bank of the United States. The predominant reason that the Second Bank of the United States was chartered was that in the War of 1812, the U.S. experienced severe inflation and had difficulty in financing military operations.

• Dartmouth v. Woodward (1819):Was a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with the application of the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution to private corporations.

• McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland.

• Gibbons v. Ogden (1824): Was a landmark decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce was granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

• Tariff of 1828: The Tariff of 1828 was a protective tariff passed by the Congress of the United States on May 19, 1828, designed to protect industry in the northern United States.

• Nullification crisis (1832-1833): Was a sectional crisis during the presidency of Andrew Jackson created by South Carolina's 1832 Ordinance of Nullification. This ordinance declared by the power of the State that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of South Carolina.

• Confederacy established (1861): The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by eleven Southern slave states that had declared their secession from the United States.

• Civil War begins (1861): Was a civil war fought over the secession of the Confederacy.

• Emancipation Proclamation (1863): It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states then in rebellion, thus applying to 3.1 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at that time.

• The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes all slavery, except as a means of punishment.

• The Fourteenth Amendment gave all domestically born or naturalized American equal civil rights. It also barred those who were involved in rebellion from voting or holding any office. State legislators were also to take into account the non-taxed Indians when counting state population.

• The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited the government from withholding the right to vote from anyone based on race of previous condition of servitude, a.k.a. slavery.

• Passed by Radical Republicans in Congress in 1867, The First Reconstruction Act treated the Southern states as territories, not states. The First Reconstruction Act divided the South into five districts, each governed by martial law. The military took control of the South (it was presided over by the military commander), in order to maintain peace. It was the first of a series of harsher bills that the Radicals passed that year.

• In 1851, Congress authorized the transfer of $10 million worth of United States bonds to the state of Texas. The bonds were payable to the state or bearer and were to be redeemable in 1864. In 1862, during the Civil War, an insurgent Texas legislature authorized the use of the bonds to purchase war supplies. Four years later, the reconstruction government tried to reclaim the bonds. White sued, claiming the state had no business reclaiming the bonds. The Supreme Court sided with Texas and revoked the credibility of the insurgent government. This, in turn, revoked the credibility of the bonds.

• Headed by Sen. Sumner and Rep. Brown, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 stated that all people, regardless of race or color or previous servitude was to be treated equally and given the same usage rights of public property and accommodations. However, this law was rarely enforced, and was enforced even less after the removal of troops from the South.

• Sherman Antitrust Act (1890): It prohibits certain business activities that reduce competition in the marketplace, and requires the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of being in violation.

• Hepburn Act (1906): United States federal law that gave the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) the power to set maximum railroad rates.

• Pure Food and Drug Act (1906): Is a United States federal law that provided the federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of poisonous patent medicines.

• Clayton Antitrust Act (1914): Was enacted in the United States to add further substance to the U.S. antitrust law regime by seeking to prevent anticompetitive practices in their incipiency. The Clayton Act specified particular prohibited conduct, the three-level enforcement scheme, the exemptions, and the remedial measures.

• Prohibition amendment (1919): The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution established prohibition in the United States. The separate Volstead Act set down methods of enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, and defined which "intoxicating liquors" were prohibited.

• Suffrage amendment (1920): The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex.

From New Deal to Great Society• Wagner Act (1935): The Wagner Act, is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with

which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in support of their demands. Did not apply to many workers such as: workers under Railway Labor Act, agricultural + domestic employees, and federal or government state workers.

• Social Security Act (1935): The Social Security Act of 1935, was a legislative act which created the Social Security system in the United States. The Act provided benefits to retirees and the unemployed, and a lump-sum benefit at death. The act also gave money to states to provide assistance to aged individuals, for unemployment insurance, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Maternal and Child Welfare, public health services, and the blind.

• Economic Opportunity Act (1964): The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 included several social programs to promote the health, education, and general welfare of the impoverished. Programs include Head Start (provides comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families.) and Job Corps (free-of-charge education and vocational training to youth ages 16 to 24.).

• Medicare and Medicaid (1965): Medicaid is the United States health program for certain people and families with low incomes and resources. Medicare is a national social insurance program, administered by the U.S. federal government that guarantees access to health insurance for Americans ages 65 and older and younger people with disabilities as well as people with end stage renal disease. (1965)

• Occupational Safety and Health Act(1970): The Occupational Safety and Health Act is the primary federal law which governs occupational health and safety in the private sector and federal government in the United States. Its main goal is to ensure that employers provide employees with an environment free from recognized hazards, such as exposure to toxic chemicals, excessive noise levels, mechanical dangers, heat or cold stress, or unsanitary conditions.

Civil Rights and the Supreme Court

• In 1951, Brown v. Board of Education changed the way schools functioned. Black children were denied admission to public schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to the races. The white and black schools approached equality in terms of buildings, curricula, qualifications, and teacher salaries. This case was decided together with Briggs v. Elliott and Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. The question was if segregation deprived black children of the 14th Amendment rights under a “separate but equal” school of thought. In a 9-0 decision, the Court decided that segregation was, in fact, illegal. Racial segregation was a display of inferiority, and was unconstitutional.

• After Brown v. Board of Education, little progress had been made in desegregating public schools by 1970. One example was the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, system in which approximately 14,000 black students attended schools that were either totally black or more than 99 percent black. Lower courts had experimented with a number of possible solutions when the case reached the Supreme Court, and the Court judged that mathematical quotas were good starting points, and predominantly black schools were to be closely judged by the court system.

• In Little Rock, Arkansas, high schools were still segregated due to the Arkansas segregation laws. Little Rock elected to gradually desegregate its schools, and the Little Rock Nine were the first African Americans to enroll. Due to the high tensions on the first day of school, the National Guard was sent to physically block the black children from entering the school. Woodrow Mann, the Mayor of Little Rock, asked Eisenhower to send federal troops to enforce integration and protect the nine students. On September 24, 1957, Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000 member Arkansas National Guard, taking it out of the hands of Governor Orval Faubus, who deployed them against the children.

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 further outlaws any kind of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public. Powers given to enforce the act were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years.

• The Voting Rights Act prohibited any kind of the discriminatory practices that were largely held responsible for the disenfranchisement of blacks in the South. This landmark bill helped to effectively end the official Jim Crow South. The act was specifically aimed towards literacy tests, which were a very effective means for cutting off the black vote in the South.

The Reagan Revolution• Deregulation of savings and loan banks (1980s): As the eighties wore on the economy

appeared to grow. Interest rates continued to go up as well as real estate speculation. The real estate market was in what is known as a "boom" mode. Many Savings and Loans banks took advantage of the lack of supervision and regulations to make highly speculative investments, in many cases loaning more money then they really should. When the real estate market crashed, and it did so in dramatic fashion, the Savings and Loans were crushed. They now owned properties that they had paid enormous amounts of money for but weren't worth a fraction of what they paid. Many went bankrupt, losing their depositors money. This was known as the S&L (Savings and Loans) Crisis

• Federal Tax Cuts (1981-1983): Reagan implemented policies based on supply-side economics and advocated a classical liberal and laissez-faire philosophy, seeking to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts. These tax cuts showed reducing taxes increases the spirit of enterprise, higher rates of growth, output, and employment.

• Drop in spending for public assistance (1981-1989): Reagan reduced public assistance by, freezing the minimum wage at $3.35 an hour, slashing federal assistance to local governments by 60%, cutting the budget for public housing and Section 8 rent subsidies in half, and eliminating the antipoverty Community Development Block Grant program.

• Tax Reform (1986): Tax reform came in the passing of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The Act simplified the income tax code, broadened the tax base and eliminated many tax shelters and other preferences. Revenue neutrality was targeted by decreasing individual tax rates, eliminating $30 billion annually in loopholes, and increasing corporate taxes.

The Reagan Revolution• Welfare Reform (1996): Welfare reform came in the passing of the

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). Which is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. The bill added a workforce development component to welfare legislation, encouraging employment among the poor.

• Federal Tax Cut (2001): Reform came with the passing of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. The Act made significant changes in several areas of the US Internal Revenue Code, including income tax rates, estate and gift tax exclusions, and qualified and retirement plan rules. In general, the act lowered tax rates and simplified retirement and qualified plan rules such as for Individual retirement accounts, 401(k) plans, 403(b), and pension plans.

Contract With America• Contract with America (1994): The Contract with America was a document

released by the United States Republican Party during the 1994 Congressional election campaign. The Contract detailed the actions the Republicans promised to take if they became the majority party in the United States House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. The Contract stated that the Republicans would promise to enact eight reforms and ten bills

• On the first day of their majority in the House, the Republicans promised to pass eight major reforms: require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply to Congress; select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse; cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third; limit the terms of all committee chairs; ban the casting of proxy votes in committee; require committee meetings to be open to the public; require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase; guarantee an honest accounting of the Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.