Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Kidwell

J.D. Seminar 357 | 3 credit hours

The American system of law and government embodied in the federal and state constitutions was built upon and in response to the common law traditions of British constitutionalism that the British-American colonists who ultimately became the American Revolutionaries and Founders saw as their heritage. According to some 21st century scholars, the American Civil War and the Reconstruction that followed so radically altered the legal and constitutional systems of the U.S. that a new constitutional order was created. According to others, the ‘original intent’ of the Founders is still the paramount touchstone of constitutional interpretation. What sort of a nation were we meant to be? What kind of nation did we become? What type of nation are we today? This course seeks to provide the student with the historical background without which these questions cannot be adequately considered, beginning with the era of the first settlements in the early 17th century and progressing forward through the revolutionary struggles of the 17th and 18th centuries into the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the 19th century. The course falls within the school of the ‘new’ British history, and therefore covers a wider context than the more familiar history of English Pilgrim's settling colonial America.

The style of the course is that of a general survey. The aim is to provide the student with a ‘big-picture’ knowledge of, and to encourage discussion and further study of, early American legal and constitutional history. This is a WR seminar, requiring students to write a publishable paper of appropriate length on a specific topic or focusing on a particular historical period. Students will be expected to give a short presentation based on their paper to the class in the final class sessions.