6. The Judiciary and the Constitution

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we examine how the Federalists continued to influence politics through the Supreme Court, despite their ousting from legislative and executive power in 1800. We will focus on: (i) the role of the Supreme Court in the Constitution; (ii) John Marshall's court; and (iii) the various cases that established the Supreme Court as an institution that could strike down laws.

Course

In this course, Professor John Pinheiro (Aquinas College) explains the causes and effects of policy debates in the early republic. We start by looking at George Washington's presidency - explaining how it came about and summarising some of the key events that occurred during it. We then turn to discuss the first political ideology of the period - Hamiltonianism. After this, we turn to examine the competing ideology to Hamiltonianism - Jeffersonianism. We then examine how these two competing ideologies, as well as international events, fed the growth of political parties in this period. In the penultimate module, we turn to examine how Thomas Jefferson tried to achieve his political aims with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In the final module, we turn to examine the Supreme Court and see how the Federalists used this institution to influence politics well after their political demise.

Lecturer

Professor John Pinheiro is Professor of History at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He specialises in American views on liberty and order, the Mexican-American War, American constitutional history, and the development of American identity during the early republic. He has written a number of books within these topics, including Missionaries of Republicanism: A Religious History of the Mexican-American War (Oxford University Press, 2014).