September 14, 2016

POS 383 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
In class today, Wednesday 9/14, I distributed one handout, my version of the outline of McCulloch v. Maryland. We began class by going over the features and deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. We then went through the constitution, looking at its organization (what subject is addressed by each of the Articles and Sections), as well as some of the substantive provisions. We discussed the difference between the retention by the states of the general "police power", versus the limit on the federal government to those powers laid out in Article I, Section 8. We moved on to the textbook case of McCulloch. We went through the arguments made by Maryland, and the responses by Marshall, putting the case into the outline format. We went through National League of Cities and Garcia v. San Antonio, and looked at the different results in those case as both a product of different interpretations of the 10th Amendment, as well as a change in votes. We discussed the set-up of NY v. US. The assignment for Wednesday 9/21 is to review the previously assigned material through p. 387; write out (though not to hand in) an outline of NY v. US (both majority and dissenting opinions); and read in the text pp. 399-414.