2. Fletcher v.

Peck

a) court case involving land fraud in Georgia

b) concluded that states can not pass legislation invalidating a contract

c) first time Supreme Court declared a state law to be unconstitutional

3. Martin v. Hunter’s Lease => established that Supreme Court has jurisdiction

over state courts in cases involving constitutional rights

4. Dartmouth College v. Woodward

a) court case involving a New Hampshire law which changed Dartmouth

College from a privately chartered college to a public institution

b) Supreme Court declared this law unconstitutional, saying that a private corporation could not be altered

by the state

5. McCulloch v. Maryland

a) Maryland tried to collect a tax from the Second Bank of the US

b) case questioned whether Congress had the right to create a national bank,

even if there was no clause in the constitution, and whether a state institution

could tax a federal institution

c) Supreme Court used loose interpretation of the Constitution to declare that

federal government had implied power to make a bank

d) states can not tax federal institution, federal laws = supreme over state laws

6. Cohens v. Virginia

a) in Virginia, the Cohens were convicted of selling DC Lottery tickets authorized

by Congress

b) the Supreme Court upheld this conviction and established the principle that the

Supreme Court could review state court cases involving the powers of the

federal government

7. Gibbons v. Ogden

a) established that a state law could not overturn a federal law

b) federal law takes precedence over state law

III. Western Settlement and the Missouri Compromise

A. Reasons for Westward movement (during presidencies of Madison & Monroe)

1. Acquisition of Native American land

2. Economic pressures from the embargo and the war

3. improved transportation enables easier settlement

4. European immigrants are attracted by cheap land

B. Missouri Compromise

1. as new states were settled and admitted to the union, the issue of slavery

became important

2. territories to the south wanted slaves for labor

3. territories to the North had no use for slaves

4. Congress tried to preserve balance between slave states and non slave states

by admitting states to the Union in pairs

5. Missouri applied for statehood by itself, as a slaveholding state

6. Tallmadge amendment

a) legislation proposed by James Tallmadge

b) called for the admission of Missouri as a slaveholding state with conditions

1) allow for existing slaves, but prohibit the addition of new slaves in MO

2) require children of current MO slaves to be emancipated at age 25

c) would have led to the gradual elimination of slavery in MO

d) South enraged, amendment defeated in the Senate

7. Clay proposed a three point compromise

a) MO to be admitted as a slave holding state

b) Maine to be admitted as a free state

c) in the rest of the Louisiana Territory north of latitude 36 degrees 30’,

slavery was prohibited => basically, north of the imaginary line is free,

south of the imaginary line are slaveholders

8. sectionalism (loyalty to one’s own region) began to battle with nationalism

 (loyalty to the Union)

IV. Foreign Affairs

A. Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817)

1. British and American negotiators agreed to a major disarmament pact

2. strictly limited naval power on the Great Lakes, and placed limits on border fortifications => US/Canada

border became longest unfortified boundary in the world

B. Treaty of 1818

1. treaty between British and Americans

2. provided for:

a) shared fishing rights off the coast of Newfoundland

b) joint occupation of the Oregon Territory for ten years

c) settling the northern limits of the Louisiana Territory at the 49 parallel,

th

establishing the western US/Canada border