TUESDAY
Learning Target: What was the Constitutional question under Article II of the Constitution surrounding the Emancipation Proclamation?
** Would the Proclamation -- a wartime measure under Article II of the Constitution -- remain valid once the war ended?
* Thaddeus Stevens (actor Tommy Lee Jones) keeps referring to "natural rights" theory in his attacks on slavery. Why?
** "Fundamental rights" under natural rights theory (including "liberty") arguably could not be "legislated away" by enactment of a constitution. The gray area (in terms of the "rule of law") was whether the U.S. Constitution had ay jurisdiction over slavery as a matter of states rights (as the Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott seemed to suggest a negative answer to that question).
* There were 23 states that remained loyal to the Union during the war: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. During the war, Nevada and West Virginia joined as new states of the Union.
Seven Deep South cotton states seceded by February 1861, starting with South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. These seven states formed the Confederate States of America (February 4, 1861), with Jefferson Davis as president, and a governmental structure closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution. In April and May 1861, four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy: Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia. Virginia was split in two, with the eastern portion of that state seceding to the Confederacy and the northwestern part joining the Union as the new state of West Virginia on June 20, 1863.
The Border states in the Union comprised West Virginia (which broke away from Virginia and became a separate state), and four of the five northernmost slave states (Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky).
Tennessee and Louisiana were returned to Union control early in the war.
** Therefore, as of January 1865 (when the events in "Lincoln" take place), there were 36 states, with 27 available to vote on the 13th Amendment. Why was this significant?
ARTICLE V of the U.S. CONSTITUTION:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
homework: bring laptops to class FRIDAY for moot court project work
moot court arguments the week of May 13-17